


Deep Waters

by Greytipped (halreyn)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Luhan is an asshole, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Games, self-respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1996140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halreyn/pseuds/Greytipped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jongdae meets Luhan, who's intent on taking every bit of Jongdae he can get, even if Jongdae fractures into pieces at the end of it. Luhan as spymaster and Jongdae as tool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Waters

**1\. Schism**

Luhan catches him over the border, armor gleaming under evening light. "What is this thing?" he asks, half-laughing, wheeling his horse around. Jongdae barely hears him, face smushed into the dirt below. An unfamiliar weight clutches at him, holding his body down. 

Who are you? Luhan asks, and Jongdae thinks - Chen - back, before he can stop himself. Luhan has mental powers. 

"Chen," Luhan repeats, out loud. Jongdae grinds the words out, against soil. "I'm not."

"What are you?" Speckled hoofs, clotted with dirt, appear in Jongdae's vision. Vague interest in Luhan's voice. "You crossed border lines. Are you a spy?"

Suho rises, like Jongdae hasn't spent so long trying to forget him, into Jongdae's mind. Soft stroke of his hand down the side of Jongdae's face, faint approving smile - 

"Suho." Fascination emanates from Luhan's voice. He breathes a laugh, tinkly, light. "Why would anyone love him?"

Rage, that surges. Then fear, because Luhan can read Jongdae's mind. He must be Luhan, third crown prince of Maygea. Maygea's spymaster, with the sweet voice that makes people walk off cliffs. 

"Such an angry cat." There's amusement to Luhan's voice. "You're coming with me, cat."

Jongdae staggers to his feet. His shoulderbag doesn't fall off, but it's close. "Come on," Luhan says. He watches Jongdae, smiling as Jongdae's body moves to clamber stiffly onto Luhan's horse, in front of him. Jongdae is cold with horror inside, because like this - without even lifting a finger - Luhan can make Jongdae do anything. 

Luhan holds him close, fitting Jongdae snugly against the cold armor. He's tall enough to tuck Jongdae under his chin. "We have a few hours," he muses. "How much do you think I can get out of you before that?"

Luhan starts off small, dropping questions about Suho, taking the answers as they flit to the front of Jongdae's mind. 

He steals the first time Jongdae met Suho, the kind, soft touch Suho left on Jongdae's forehead. 

He opens up moments, bits of time where Jongdae began slip-sliding down the slope of no return.  Suho, exhausted and dusty under the full heat of summer, tipping his head back to let Jongdae run a washcloth over his face. Suho, turning from his horse to wrap Jongdae in a bear hug, letting himself rest his head on Jongdae's shoulder for a quiet moment. Suho tired in his chair, documents covering his table. Jongdae placing the tea set on the floor, bringing a blanket to cover Suho, lingering with a lump in his throat.

Suho being everything Jongdae wanted, but beyond what he could have. 

Suho tangling fingers with Kyungsoo, giving Kyungsoo small smiles. Jongdae cleaning up the room while Kyungsoo and Suho shared the bathroom; folding the sheets, the smell of sex thick like grease, lumpy and impossible in the pits of his stomach. Luhan examines the relief Jongdae felt, turns it over and over until he sees the months of waiting, of Suho slowly noticing Kyungsoo and sharing laughs with him, of hands touching and tension building, fights and make-ups, of a love with no space for Jongdae in it being built. It was good to know that Jongdae had lost, that the battle was over and Jongdae could finally lie back and hold nothing in his palms.

Luhan doesn't have to do anything. The memories come in a flood after that, too tightly interlinked to leave anything out. Jongdae meeting strangers that looked like Suho, smiling at them, letting them take him home and run hands over him. Jongdae waking up the next day and blankly wondering if anything would work, if he did it wrongly, maybe if it was another person, maybe it was him. If anything could stop this yawning gap inside him that kept growing, collapsing bits of him into this split chasm.

Jongdae fighting with Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Jongdae scratching at too-tight skin, pulled sharp over his features, not enough to cover all the exposed raw nerves that had to be showing. Jongdae taking his things and leaving, a short, shaky letter to Suho. 

  
What do you want? Jongdae thinks, despairing.

"More," Luhan says. "I want everything you could have given Suho."

\--

  
Before two hours are up, Luhan has his hand in Jongdae's robes, fisting him. Jongdae stares at open sky and scrambles for breath, through the choking tears. The rhythm of hoofs on ground bounces him up and down in Luhan's grip. This is not fair, Jongdae has no barriers left, Luhan is reading him - reading the rough scrape of fingernail against Jongdae, the rhythmless tap of fingers on his cockhead. The feel of Luhan's knees around Jongdae's, hard, Luhan's soft exhales in his ear, Luhan bearing down onto Jongdae with no promise of stopping, leaves Jongdae wide open. Jongdae would beg, but Luhan can hear him already, all pressed up as he is against Jongdae's soul. 

Luhan keeps Jongdae's mind in the present, makes him feel himself cracking under the weight of attention. A horrified part of Jongdae knows he always wanted this pressure, wanted himself shattered to bits so that he could be remade for someone. Jongdae just wants to not be himself, he wants to be unmade thoroughly. And Luhan, Luhan is doing just that now. 

"Close your eyes," Luhan orders. The movement, the force, the helplessness of it all sends Jongdae over the edge. Too punched-out to shout, Jongdae is silent through his orgasm, stars exploding on the back of his eyelids. 

He stops thinking, after that.

 

**2\. No excuses**

 

Luhan fumbles at the strap of his vest; Jongdae unthinkingly pulls at the clasp (Suho looking back at Jongdae sheepishly, fingers too swollen to get his own armor off), reaching up to pull it off Luhan. 

Luhan flings it into the grass uncaringly, peels his undershirt off. Like this, looking up  at Luhan, pale skin translucent and sweaty, arms stretched above his head, half-removed shirt brushing the bottom of tousled brown hair - Luhan smiles at Jongdae, knowing. Jongdae is hot and cold at once, dizzy.

Luhan flexes his fingers, settling over Jongdae's knees. Jongdae watches the play of those fingers, remembers how they felt around his cock. Luhan is still smiling. Playfully, he tugs at Jongdae's shirt, curling his fingers around the hem. 

Jongdae takes it off. "Good boy," Luhan murmurs. His grin has teeth in it. A hand skates Jongdae's side, feels the shape of his ribs, dips down to the curve of his waist. Jongdae endures the touch, until he can't. "Are you trying to fuck me or tickle me?" he snaps. Luhan needs to do something.

"Are we on my schedule, or yours?" 

"It's yours, gramps." Jongdae bites his lip, looks up at Luhan. "Don't think you're up for it - what if you throw out your back?"

"Please, keep provoking me." Luhan settles more firmly onto Jongdae's thighs. "Please." His voice is light. "Strange, how you never said this to Suho."

Jongdae's caught, at a loss for words. Suho is not - Jongdae doesn't talk about Suho. He doesn't. 

"Fuck me good," Jongdae says hoarsely. He meets Luhan's eyes defiantly, arousal, fear, anger thumping sick beats across his gut. "You can't do it, can you?"

"Oh, Chen," Luhan says fondly (Suho, only Suho calls him Chen). "You have no idea how easy you are." He meets Jongdae's eyes, and -

Jongdae, knees pulled up to his chest, a finger hot and painful inside of him, biting down on a cry of Suho - 

Jongdae, face buried in Suho's shirt, legs spread, two fingers this time (Suho downstairs in the courtyard, Jongdae fucking himself to the sound of Suho's voice barking orders) - 

"Stop it." Ragged, heavy breaths. Jongdae's shivering, cock half-hard against his pants, Luhan's palm a heavy weight pressing against it. Luhan took, Luhan took things that Jongdae would have never let a living soul know and spilled it all out and Jongdae is getting harder against Luhan's palm, Jongdae- 

"Luhan," Jongdae moans, against Luhan's bare shoulder, through the smell of sweat and wildflowers. "Luhan, please, please, please-"

"I'm not up for anything," Luhan breathes into Jongdae's ear. "I'm not, I'm not, I'm not -"

Jongdae bites down on Luhan's collarbone in sheer animal spite, enough that the coppery taste of blood seeps through, tinging the fog of unreality Jongdae exists in now. Luhan catches hold of Jongdae's chin, squeezing it hard enough that Jongdae has to let go. He keeps hurting Jongdae, digging fingernails into the soft skin of his cheeks. Pain is good, because it cleanses like fire, wrecking Jongdae, tearing thoughts down to alight nerve endings.

Luhan lets go, draws back. Jongdae leans into Luhan, chasing his touch. "Hurt me," Jongdae finds himself saying. "Hurt me, hurt me please, please don't stop, please-"

Luhan backhands Jongdae, enough that he stops. Jongdae listens to the ringing in his ears, the world beginning to fall away. Luhan works at his pants, pushing Jongdae down to the grass. He makes Jongdae lift his hips so that Luhan can pull them down, off him. The feeling of his body moving, out of his control, makes Jongdae gasp. 

Luhan makes Jongdae roll over. "Relax," he tells Jongdae, and somehow Jongdae's body does, easing enough for Luhan to fit a slick finger inside of him. It burns but Jongdae wants it to burn. 

"Who was the first one?"

Chi, from Jongdae's hometown, making him roll over like this, telling him that it would be fine, that it would only hurt at the start, back then Jongdae hadn't wanted anything to hurt, yet-

Luhan scissors his fingers, stretching them deliberately wide. Jongdae's thoughts disrupted, he follows the sensations, riding the wave of discomfort and pain-pleasure. 

"That's enough," Luhan drapes himself over Jongdae; Jongdae's pretty sure his arms are going to give out at any moment. They do, when  Luhan begins to press in.  Luhan keeps his palms tight on Jongdae's hips, pain radiating from his tight hold. Enough to keep Jongdae tied down to the feeling of something pushing in, shoving breath out of his gut, out through the lungs, windpipe, emerging in futile little whines he can't bite back. Luhan pushing his way into Jongdae, rearranging his insides to make space for the burn. 

"Eyes shut," Luhan murmurs, and as Jongdae does so, he punches the last bit of the way in. The sudden darkness, washed bright at the edges by pain, pulls Jongdae down to somewhere quiet. 

He's only dimly aware of - things, attention given to Luhan fucking him, the heat and smell of him (crushed wildflowers in summer) mixing and entering through pores in Jongdae's skin, sinking down through muscles to bone. Luhan himself sinking into Jongdae, searing, his cock hot and invasive - using Jongdae. Taking from him. 

Hand around Jongdae's balls, rolling them. A slap of his cock, and Jongdae is coming, seizing up around Luhan. He rides the stuttering waves, shattering apart without a sound. Face in the dirt, arms given way, Jongdae is soft and lax, finally hopeless and free, as Luhan finishes the last few strokes, hissing in satisfaction. 

Jongdae is hot and liquid inside and outside, and he wants to stay that way.

**3\. Wingspan**

Jongdae stays buried in Luhan's side, the sound of Luhan's breathing and the rise and fall of his chest the whole of Jongdae's world. Luhan doesn't touch him, but he doesn't move away. That's enough.

Jongdae's the one who rolls away when he finally comes back to himself, when the world isn't just touch and smell, when faint grief takes back refuge in his heart. He left Suho. He took everything he had, packed up and left. 

He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. Everything and everyone, and Jongdae had just given them up like that, running away like a deer scared out of its mind. 

He hasn't been thinking clearly for a long time, and in the aftermath of - whatever it was with Luhan - burned clean and empty through, Jongdae can admit that now. 

The thought of going back makes Jongdae ache, because he wants to, so badly. But going back and seeing Suho with Kyungsoo would take strength Jongdae doesn't think he has.

Luhan flops to the ground beside Jongdae, his shirt back on. "Wear your clothes," he says, punctuating the sentence with a yawn. Jongdae fixes Luhan's fringe, combing through the soft brown strands with his fingers. Luhan stills, watching Jongdae through half-lidded eyes. 

"Suho had messy hair," Luhan says, stifling another yawn.

"He did." Jongdae narrows his eyes. "How much of my mind can you read?"

Luhan shrugs, burying his face in his arms. Jongdae opens his mouth to speak, but a thump, muffled by grass, makes him look around. 

A man strides out of the trees. He's big- impressively tall and well-built, moving with an assured grace. The sun catches on his blond hair, and the pommel of the sword at his waist. The Maegyar colors glint, taunting Jongdae. 

Jongdae scrambles for his clothes. Luhan doesn't move at all.

The man gives Jongdae a once-over, unimpressed. Jongdae grits his teeth, turns his back to him and hops clumsily into his pants.

"You were late ... for this?"

"Yes," is all Luhan says. There's satisfaction in his voice as he adds, "I had fun."

Jongdae fumbles with his shirt, wishes he could have washed up. 

"Yixing's furious." Yixing must mean something, because Luhan says sulkily, "I'm going back now."

The man sighs. Jongdae turns around, just in time to see the man turn away and start walking. Every step he takes is one step higher than the previous one, like he's walking up a staircase. But there's - it's empty air. Jongdae chokes as things begin to solidify in the air, forming a barely-there set of winglike structures emerging from the man's back. White, hard, like fossilised feathers that kept their color. Kris, general of Maegyar's army. 

The next step Kris takes, it plunges him down. The wings snap open, gleaming and solid, transparency chased solid as they fan fully open. Easily, the wingspan is bigger than the length of a fully grown warhorse. 

The wings beat, scaly and gleaming, and Kris is lifted into the sky. Those long legs of his don't seem as straight as they were before. The wings beat again, and Jongdae realizes that he's looking at the scaled hind legs of a creature. Kris is lifted up on steady wingbeats; he's fully transformed, long body leading up to a slender, elongated neck, thick snout and intelligent, dark eyes. He shines so bright, it hurts Jongdae's eyes to look at him.

Jongdae had heard of this, but to see it happen is to see a legend come alive.

"Get on the horse," Luhan says, patting his waist. "Kris never lets anyone ride him."

\--  
On the way back, Luhan finishes up with Jongdae.

"I'm going to take everything you know about Suho," Luhan promises, fingers rubbing circles into Jongdae's side. 

The horse is placid, clip-clopping steadily across the uneven field. Jongdae feels familiar paralysis, holding him in place. 

Jongdae was Suho's manservant for a year, when Suho had the army camped near Jongdae's hometown. Jongdae was good with languages, and could speak both local dialect and the official language well. He'd stepped up to volunteer, because Suho had been unbearably sincere, holding his helmet in his hands as he spoke to the townspeople about needing their help against Maygea. Jongdae had believed in him.

It was good, Jongdae thinks, that Suho had never brought him anywhere important. He had kept Suho's gear and tent in good shape, served him at dinner, but Suho had never brought him into strategy meetings. Nor had he shared his worries with Jongdae.

\--

When Jongdae blinks, he's in a small, neatly-kept stable, lying on a pile of hay. A single lamp throws light over him and Luhan. 

"We're done," Luhan explains, patting his cheek. Jongdae aches all over. "--we?"

"My stable." Luhan stands, stretches. 

"-- is that?" It's hard for Jongdae to speak, somehow.

"Camp." Luhan pats the nose of his horse, who snuffles at his hand. "I have everything I need from you, so you can go now. It's far from the border, but if you keep walking, you should be able to make it back by dawn."

Jongdae's struck dumb. 

"You-" He gestures between Luhan and him, and then lets his hand drop. He doesn't know what he's thinking. 

"Come on." Luhan offers him a hand. "I'll point you in the right direction."

Numbly, he takes Luhan's hand. It's surprisingly soft. 

Luhan leads him out of the stable, into a small, empty courtyard. It's evening, and cold. 

He opens a small side gate, and they step out into a grassland. 

"You didn't have anything useful on Suho," Luhan reassures him. He stands out in the darkness, too fey to be real. 

Jongdae remembers Suho, thanking Jongdae, before sending him away to make space for Kyungsoo. Jongdae clutches at his shirt, strange pangs resonating in him. 

He should be happy, that he gets to go back. 

You used me? But Luhan took what he wanted. Information about Suho. Jongdae can't blame him. You used me? But Luhan never made promises. Luhan just fucked Jongdae silly, and Jongdae had liked it. Had begged him for more. You used me? Jongdae wants to say it, doesn't understand how to say it. 

"I want a horse," Jongdae says instead. "And a blanket. And food. And water. It's night, I'm going to freeze to death."

"I don't have time for that," Luhan protests. "I'm late. Here, let me help you-"

Jongdae starts walking, not of his own accord. He's- Luhan's-

When he comes to himself again, Jongdae's in the middle of grassland, Luhan's house barely visible on the horizon. He's cold and freezing and- Jongdae grits his teeth, makes his aching feet move.

**4\. Ease, Tension**

 

It's almost daylight when Jongdae finally sees a house; a small two-storey inn, the signboard proclaiming it "Bun Heaven". 

Jongdae eats everything that Minseok puts in front of him; noodles, broth, steamed chicken, buns. When Minseok asks him if he wants to stay and help to run the inn, Jongdae almost cries.

He works hard, and here, in between Maygea and Desun, the silent land punctuated only by occasional messengers, it's easy to put everything else behind as a bad dream.

\--

Jongdae dreams; the white dragon crouches, wings folded, in the dank cave. The bulbous eye swells open, catching sight of Jongdae.

Jongdae wakes up sweating, caught in a cry of Luhan! 

Other nights, Jongdae dreams slow, easy, dreams, long summer days and Suho's faint smile, him rubbing his thumb in small circles over Jongdae's hand.

Those nights, he wakes up with sound choked back. 

It's too hot, tonight. It's always too hot, these summer months. 

  
\--

  
"Hey, Jongdae-ah." Minseok appears in the doorway, frowning. "I need your help."

Jongdae pushes the rest of the bun into his mouth and follows Minseok into the kitchen, still chewing. Minseok's never flustered, but he is, now. 

"There's a group of soldiers outside." Minseok checks the bamboo steamers, then the amount of flour he has left. "They want noodles and buns...I can't make enough for all of them and serve the tables at the same time. Wait the tables?"

Jongdae makes a sound around the bun in his mouth, then gives Minseok a thumbs up. Minseok was kind enough to take Jongdae in, though Jongdae thinks Minseok might just have been lonely. 

\--

Jongdae drops the teapot, curses. Minseok will kill him. It's not broken, but the tea has already spilled out, soaking the tabletop. Jongdae attacks the spill with the teatowel around his neck, trying not to look at both Kris and Luhan. 

"Chen?" 

"Don't call me that," Jongdae says automatically, then winces. Luhan grins when Jongdae reluctantly meets his eyes. It's unexpectedly boyish. 

When Luhan doesn't say anything more, Jongdae picks up the sopping towel, rights the teapot and retreats hastily to the kitchen. 

"What? What did you do?" Minseok looms over him, bloody hunk of meat in his hands. 

"Nothing!" Jongdae protests. He refills the teapot and goes back out again, avoiding Luhan's table for as long as he can. When he finally serves their table, Luhan is involved in discussion with Kris, map laid out on the table. He doesn't even look at Jongdae, this time.

Jongdae retreats. Sinks to the floor, asks himself whats wrong. Seeing luhan like this, unchanged (the months between folded away, Jongdae feels like he just saw him yesterday), upsets the calm Jongdae worked so hard to build around him. It's different from Suho; that's a dark, yawning ache Jongdae is sure he will always carry with him. Remembering Luhan is like pulling himself, shivering, from the sea, one long afternoon; alternately hot and cold, sticky and sea-tired, throat burning. Caught alive in a single moment, run through with the wild thought of doing it all again, knowing the only ending is sea whittling him to bone, skin gone and no longer calling for touch. 

Minseok calls from the kitchen, impatient and pleading. Jongdae scrubs his face and gets to his feet. Life always goes on, after all.  
\--

The party comes back a few days later, noticeably bedraggled. Luhan orders a bowl of beef noodles but doesn't finish even half of it. He scrubs at the table with his fingernail, idly, as Kris finishes both his own and Luhan's bowl.

Back in the kitchen, Jongdae's gaze falls on a plate of buns Minseok has left cooling on the table. He wraps a few in a piece of cloth, not thinking about what he's doing. He makes to walk in, walks back out, looks in. Minseok swats at him with a cloth, unimpressed.

Luhan's horse is big, but placid. A pretty shade of dappled grey. She barely moves as Jongdae lodges the bundle in Luhan's saddlebag.

Jongdae tries not to think about it, over the next few days, as he waits but pretends he isn't waiting for the party to come back. 

A day turns into a week, then a month. Two months. Seven months, suddenly.

It gets easier over time. It doesn't feel that way at first, when Jongdae waits, hope rekindled. It doesn't feel that way when the dreams keep coming, stranger, Suho, Luhan, sometimes both. But when the hope starts to die out, worn away by the calm of daily life, so does the pain. 

Jongdae no longer thinks so much about both of them. He has less conversations in his head, less replaying of moments where he thinks, wildly - I should have done this - should have told Suho, told him first, shouldn't have left - should have walked back that night to Luhan's house, stood there until Luhan let him in, should not have gone that way and met Luhan, should have talked to Luhan the first day, or the second day that he stopped by the inn - the thoughts are quieter, now.  They come once in a while, brought by the flimsiest things - a sound, color, Jongdae thinking. They come and they hurt, the pain shocking because Jongdae has gone for a while without it. But most of the time, Jongdae's better.

He can hear Minseok better. Minseok's undemanding and frank, though he shakes his head at Jongdae's cooking and trails after Jongdae to refold the bedsheet corners after Jongdae's done cleaning the inn rooms. Jongdae debates about being bad at it, for a while longer, just to see how long Minseok's patience will last, but finally decides against it. 

Jongdae learns to cook (he should have learnt it before he met Suho, but). He makes friends with Minseok, real friends. They sit on the grass at night, talk about the inn, about painting the walls, going to the trade fair in the next town for new blankets, maybe raising a cow for milk. 

Jongdae gets better.

\--

Seven months later, a troop of soldiers come down the road. Minseok goes back into the kitchen to prepare, while Jongdae slouches at the side of the road, waiting to see if they'll stop. 

"Tea on this hot day? Buns? Noodles?"

Kris rides up the column, sun glinting off his helmet. A tiny dragon is embossed at the side of it, about the size of Jongdae's palm. 

"Everything," Kris says. He smiles, and that's when Jongdae knows something is wrong. Kris never smiles, not at Jongdae at least. 

"We're taking over your inn for a while," Kris says, casually, like it's not Jongdae's and Minseok's livelihood they're talking about. 

"We'll compensate you, of course," he assures. "But you'll have to put up with us for a while. This is going to be the base for a Hunt."

If there's a Hunt, there's a monster nearby. Jongdae stiffens. Suho had gone to his hometown on a Hunt as well, for Desun.

Masses of military people coming, staying - for both Maygea and Desun, these Hunts are proxies for war. They spend up to years on each one.

"Get going," Kris tells him. "I'll imagine that you need to prepare all your rooms for us."

Jongdae barely resists the urge to swear at Kris. He's - this is going to change things. And Jongdae doesn't want anything to change. 

Us. Where is Luhan?

He counts the months. Seven months. Jongdae was getting  _better_. 

Jongdae doesn't want Luhan coming back. He doesn't.

 

**5\. Sleeves**

In his dream, Luhan's lying beside Jongdae, in his bed. He's on top of the covers. Jongdae stares, admiring the faint shine of Luhan's hair even in the pitch-dark room. Then he looks down the curve of Luhan's neck, his bare shoulders, ribs, waist, legs- realizes that Luhan's naked. So it's a good dream.

The Luhan even holds Jongdae's jaw the right way, gripping the jawline tight, thumb digging into the part where jaw meets soft cheek. 

It's a dream, so Jongdae lets himself lean into Luhan's touch. He breathes on Luhan's hand, lets himself flick a tongue out to taste skin. The up tilt of Luhan's lips, pleased, makes Jongdae smile in return. 

"Roll down the covers," the dream-Luhan instructs. Jongdae pulls them down, letting Luhan straddle him. He sits on Jongdae's chest, just at the right height to-oh. Luhan urges Jongdae's head up, tucking the pillow below it. Jongdae takes a shaky breath. He can taste Luhan, almost, on his tongue. Feel the weight of his presence sinking into Jongdae's skin, escalating wherever he touches. 

Luhan tucks Jongdae's hair out of the way,moves in closer. He tilts his hips to get the right angle, cock brushing Jongdae's lips. It takes some of the weight of Jongdae's chest, and he misses it. Misses the pressure, any kind of oressure, that Luhan can pile onto him. 

"Did you miss me?" Luhan asks, hushed. Jongdae licks his lips, tasting Luhan for real-faintly-on his lips. He opens his mouth in response, obediently. Luhan doesn't want a real answer, Jongdae knows that. Not now, not with the way Luhan is eyeing him. 

Jongdae shifts his own hips, faint whine escaping him as Luhan keeps feeding his cock into Jongdae's mouth. There's so much of him and he keeps growing bigger, bigger, pushing against Jongdae's tongue, the roof of his mouth, the back of his mouth- Jongdae gags, hand flying up to clutch onto Luhan's hip, but he tuts, eyes gleaming. Jongdae keeps gagging, body starting to buck. 

"Shh," Luhan croons, withdrawing. Jongdae brings a hand to his eyes, feels tears. His gut is still threatening to throw up. 

He opens obediently for Luhan, again, just for that pleased smile to return. Jongdae's not good at this, his previous lovers had all said that, but he wants to try for Luhan. This time, it's marginally better, because he knows much he needs to fit in. But it's still too invasive, too much. Jongdae digs fingers into his fist, eyes watering. He'll try to take it more, this time, for Luhan. 

"Jongdae?" The light flickers on. Across the room, Minseok rub his eyes, frowning. He gapes.

Jongdae - it's not a dream. Luhan is really here, on Jongdae's bed, his cock down. Jongdae's throat. Luhan sighs, melting into Jongdae's mind, and makes him relax before he panics and bites down. Like this, throat completely relaxed, Luhan hits the back of Jongdae's throat. 

"Close your eyes," Luhan instruct breathily, beginning to pull out. Welcome darkness covers Jongdae, and he's oddly grateful for it.

"You, stay there."

Luhan fucking Jongdae's throat, using him. Jongdae feels himself split, splinter. Minseok-Minseok- he tries to say something, but Luhan's the one in charge, now. Jongdae feels everything from the end of a dark tunnel, where the odd taste of Luhan, the musky smell of him, seeps, moist, creeping, a fog.

On his last thrust, Luhan goes so deep Jongdae feels hair tickling his lips. He makes Jongdae drink every single drop, and when he pulls out Jongdae is completely hard. There's Minseok, but Luhan has a way of filling up Jongdae so throroughly his mind goes blank. 

That doesn't mean Jongdae isn't shaking in shame. Luhan yawns, pulling out. He slides down Jongdae's body, sprawling over him.

"Get the lights," he says. 

Minseok flicks the light off. 

Free again, Jongdae begins to think, and when he thinks, panic screams, loud in him. Luhan rubs a clumsy hand over Jongdae's face. "Sleep, both of you." He mumbles.

\--

"Jongdae?" Minseok's worried, kneeling at the floor beside Jongdae's bed. He's just shaken Jongdae awake. Jongdae touches the corners of his lips. They're broken. At the back of his mouth, Luhan lingers. 

"Who was that?" 

Jongdae opens his mouth, closes it.

"Was that the monster that they're hunting? Should I tell Kris?"

"What?" Jongdae blinks. But- "No," he says. "It's,um." Kris knows. "Luhan," he says at last. 

Minseok's blinking slowly, eyes extra-large. Minseok has nice eyes, oval and expressive. He speaks through them more than he does normal speech. 

"Luhan," he echoes. "The Luhan."

"Yeah, I know," Jongdae says in a rush. "I wish it was the monster instead."

"I didn't-are you spy service? A spy under him?"

"Me?" Jongdae breaks Minseok's cups. Regularly. And his noodles end up like pythons that swallowed goats. Whole goats.

"You could be part of a special branch," Minseok says. "Sent out here early to scout the area."

"Really?"

"No," Minseok admits. "So, how did you meet him?"

Luhan, Suho. "I was crossing the border, and he caught me." Jongdae's throat aches. He brings a hand up to touch it. "I don't know anything," he says. It's strange, saying it out loud. "I thought- he's. He came, and left."

"Kris owes us protection," Minseok says, gently. We could tell him. Make Luhan stop. 

"Yeah," Jongdae says. "Yeah."

\--

Except Luhan's waiting with Kris, out in the front area that makes up the restaurant of the inn. Kris has his fingers steepled, reading a document in front of him. Luhan's relaxed, eyes half-closed. He has on non-army attire today, a sea-glass green robe cinched by a white belt. It falls in waves off his shoulders, swamps his hands. Tiny white flowers, too small to be anything but hand-embroidered, float on the shimmering material. 

It's a slow smile, followed by a crook of his fingers. Come here. Jongdae goes across the room wordlessly, stands beside Luhan. 

"Is this it? Is this what you woke me up for?" Kris asks.

"Lord Kris," Minseok approaches, bowing. He's changed his accent, Jongdae realizes. It's polished Capital now, the syllables of Maygea's official language crisp and clear. "I would request for you all to leave my employees and I alone, so we can best carry out our duties. For the Hunt."

"Of course, Minseok," Kris says. "I would be happy to grant you anything within my official capacity. Unfortunately, Lord Luhan is not. I have no say over him, and thank the gods for that." He rolls up his paper, stands, leaves hastily, scabbard clanking against the table. "I'll take my breakfast in my room."

"You wanted to speak to me, Minseok?" Luhan asks curiously. The smile that plays about his lips is perfectly genuine. 

"What do you want with my employee, Lord Luhan?" Minseok asks bluntly. The look he throws Kris, as he retreats, is unfriendly. But though Kris has a reputation, as the army's general, Luhan has a reputation. Even in his hometown, Jongdae had heard of Luhan, and his rise to power. There was bloody, and there was espionage, and then there was Luhan. 

"Personal service." Luhan gives Jongdae a warm, appreciative look. "He does that very well."

"There's personal, and there's private. Some things are unwanted, no matter who they are by. If you catch my drift, Lord Luhan."

"Are you sure of that, Minseok?" Luhan is nothing but a picture of concern. "I can make you want anything, Minseok, oh, you could never imagine. You have the most interesting thoughts, Minseok. What would you not want me to know?"

"Lu-um, Lord Luhan!" Jongdae interrupts, grabbing Luhan's chin and turning it towards him. 

"I'm going to break your fingers," Luhan says clearly, expression wiped clean of any emotion. Jongdae's already releasing him, the moment he catches sight of the blank mask that settles on Luhan's face. Jongdae's not a fool. 

"Personal service," he says hastily, backing away. "I need to get tea and food for you, now. Come on, Minseok, you need to get the fire started, Minseok go please. Um. Lord Luhan. What would you like?"

"The contents of your head, laid out across this entire floor now." Luhan is back to smiling beatifically. "But I'll settle for taking it slowly. Bit by bit."

"Oh, please." Jongdae says, before he can stop himself. "You've done that before. Don't you have anything else up those sleeves of yours?"

"No, should I?" The smile cracks, at last. Luhan looks cross. Jongdae relaxes, slightly. "I like you better when you can't talk." Luhan eyes Jongdae speculatively. "How's your throat?"

Jongdae flushes. "I've had worse," he lies. 

"That's good," Luhan says smoothly. "Another thing left to try."

"Why are you here?" Jongdae fingers the sleeves of his own shirt. "Kris didn't leave a room for you. They're all full up."

"I'll make space." Luhan blinks. "I was done with my other job, so I came here for a while."

"How long is a while?"

"Does that matter?" Luhan doesn't look concerned. "As long as it takes."

"What-" Jongdae shakes his head to clear it. "What do you need from me?"

"Make my bed. Clean my armor. Feed me." Luhan looks bored, already. "Go on. I'm hungry."

"What you did last night," Jongdae begins.

Luhan watches him, almost like he's daring Jongdae. Go ahead. Say something. Jongdae flips the experience around in his mind. There's nothing Jongdae can say about it, really. Does he tell Luhan to stop? To stay away from him? 

"Why did you?"

Luhan is almost pitying. "Do you think I had a reason?"

There's no reasoning with Luhan, no way of understanding him. Jongdae doesn't want to push for an answer, because he doesn't think there's one. He doesn't want to say don't, stay away from me, because Luhan would laugh, Luhan never took Jongdae seriously. He doesn't want to do something and find out how completely helpless he is, really. 

"Don't do it in front of Minseok," is all that Jongdae says. He doesn't quite know what he's saying, either.

He goes, not looking at Luhan. 

 

**6\. Pushover**

 

Two and a half years ago, Jongdae met Suho.

The outside of Suho’s tent had been a mess. It was made of the best canvas money could buy, white wyrm-skin stretched over skeletal scaffolding, but anyone could see how completely battered it was. The scales, usually glowing with a soft sheen, were dull, marred with scratches and dirt.The only gleaming thing was Desun’s flag, perched on the top of the box-shaped tent.

Jongdae had entered, found it lit with sensible army lanterns lined atop support beams abovehead. The back portion of the tent was closed off with Desun-blue cloth. The front, where Jongdae and Suho were, had a low wooden table in the centre, and chests lining the walls. Underfoot was plain canvas, this time.

Suho had been so focused. He’d been writing at the low table, stacks of paper piled high around him. Jongdae had stood in the entrance awkwardly, watching. After a while, Suho had noticed. He’d stood, winced from a cramp. Jongdae was there by his side, holding him up.

That had been the way their routine began. Jongdae was there for Suho’s non-army things, the things normal human beings needed to do to survive. He’d got food from the army kitchens, led Suho off to the baths, stayed up until Suho reluctantly put his affairs away to sleep. Jongdae had liked it, being so important to someone.

\--

It scares him, how similar Luhan is to Suho. Luhan gets up before Minseok’s rooster (Kris had paid for new farm animals); he’s fastidious about cleanliness but nonchalant about food. There are times where, like Suho, he stops moving. He goes still, looking into the distance like there’s someone calling his name. Jongdae stops and waits, keeps people away from him until he’s back again.

It scares him, how easily he can get used to taking care of someone all over again.

\--

A week later, Jongdae’s jolted awake by the sounds of horses arriving in the courtyard.

It’s only when he opens the front door of the porch that he recognizes the army outside.

There’s Suho, standing in the yard, holding the reigns of his warhorse. The area is washed in Desun colors, blue and dawn-silver.

Jongdae leans on the frame, gut punched tight with pain.

“Did you know?” His voice comes out weird and unemotional, even to him. He recognizes the footsteps behind him well enough.

Luhan yawns – it’s a gust of moist air, then a weight on his shoulder. Luhan’s arms come around Jongdae’s waist, holding him close. Jongdae feels hair tickling the side of his face, smells Luhan faintly.

Jongdae touches Luhan’s hands, squeezes them.

He gets in one good hit to Luhan’s stomach with his elbow before Luhan retaliates- he takes control of Jongdae, makes him sink to his knees. Luhan clutches a hand to his abdomen, expression of calm shattered to bits.

By the time he settles, straightening, Jongdae knows Luhan well enough to know what will come next will not be good.

Luhan doesn’t stop. He gets hurt and hurts people back until they can't touch him anymore.

Jongdae can move, he discovers. He gets to his feet, wary.

“Hit me,” Luhan says. The smile that blossoms quick, edged, is beautiful. “Or would you rather… I hit you?”

It’s been a secret kept for so long it never existed. He’s never talked about it, no one has  _known._  It takes a while before understanding sinks in, and when it does, it feels like skin peeling off in flaking bits, the rawness of the nerves salt-bright pain.

Luhan isn’t expecting it when Jongdae throws himself at Luhan. It’s – Luhan has so many ways available to stop Jongdae, no one would even consider it a fight. But he lets Jongdae get in a hit, across his cheekbones. Tangles his fingers in Jongdae’s shirt, pulls him close like he’s going to kiss him, and then punches him right in the gut.

Jongdae’s been in brawls before. This is something more, not just anger, but desperation set loose. Cut enough things of importance away, a cornered dog will slip its leash.

As he reels over gasping, Luhan kicks him in the stomach. Jongdae staggers back, crashing into the benches. It’s sensation exploding in the back of his knees that makes him kneel again, legs folding like matchstick houses under the weight of flame.

Luhan taps Jongdae’s face with his fist, then follows it up with a blow heavy enough to topple Jongdae to the floor.

Luhan over Jongdae, heavy on his chest.

“Get off him,” Suho orders. It’s funny, because that cuts through the adrenaline incisively. Jongdae doesn’t want Suho to see him like that. He doesn’t want Suho near because there’s no way Jongdae can go back.

Luhan’s palm on Jongdae’s cheek. Jongdae turns into the touch, blind with pain.

“He likes it,” Luhan says clearly.

“Get off him.”

Luhan laughs lowly. Stands up.

There are hands on Jongdae, urging him to sit up. Jongdae slips away from that touch, gasping.

“ _Luhan_ ,” he manages to say. “ _Luhan._ ”

 

Luhan what? Luhan for taking him and splitting him into so many pieces, Jongdae doesn’t need to be anyone in those moments. Luhan for putting him before Suho for- some negotiation, using him. Jongdae’s sure of that. Luhan because Jongdae is scared witless by Suho and everything Suho still means to him.

Jongdae buries his face in the silk of Luhan’s robe, clutching at it. At himself through it.

“He’s scared of you.” Luhan doesn’t know how right he is.

Someone hits someone, Jongdae doesn’t know. Luhan’s robe is torn out of his hands, and he watches as Luhan staggers backwards. Suho’s legs move into his vision, familiar – his armor is cleaned perfectly, Jongdae’s happy to see – Luhan ducks, gleeful –

They’re fighting, Jongdae realizes dimly.

He gets to his feet, clutching the bench for support.

 _Stop it,_ he says, ragged. No one hears.

 

Xiumin appears behind them, framed in the doorway of the kitchen. His hands are covered in flour, loose bits coloring the air around them. “ _What the-“_ he mouths.

 

People are streaming past Jongdae, people in Desun blue. At the head of the stairs, Kris appears, half-naked, hair a complete mess. He groans, rubbing his eyes.

The Desun soldiers turn around and start swinging at one another. It’s Luhan-  and why didn’t Luhan stop Suho? Luhan let Suho attack him. Luhan wanted Suho to attack him.

Jongdae clings on to that thought, thinking fiercely.

If Suho was here, like this, it wasn’t an attack. He was invited. And the only reason for Maygea to invite a Desun commander over to would be to parly.

If the Desun commander broke the rules of parly, the negotiation would be tipped to Maygea’s favour. Maygea could demand almost anything now, and Desun would have to agree.

Luhan  _used_ Jongdae. He planned it all from the start.

 

Jongdae’s moving before he’s thinking. He squeezes through the crowd, shoving soldiers out of the way, until he reaches Suho.

“He’s  _baiting_ you,” Jongdae begs Suho quietly, blocking him from going nearer to Luhan. Pressed to Suho like this, it’s familiar and strange – Jongdae never dared, but there were casual touches, hugs. The way the greaves of his armor dig into Jongdae’s skin is something Jongdae dreamt about, before.

 

There are already soldiers by his side holding him back, but Suho’s gaze is distant, remote. Jongdae’s scared, so scared. Suho only got into these moods on a Hunt, and no one came near him when he was this way. Not even Jongdae.

Suho snaps out of it after a long, tense moment. Jongdae can hardly breathe.

“Chen,” he says. Then, “ _Chen,”_ pained, lifting a hand to press against Jongdae’s cheek. Too relieved to back away, Jongdae leans into his touch.

 

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he says, thumbing over the aching area on Jongdae’s cheekbone. He slips his free arm around Jongdae’s waist, pulling them flush together.

It’s the way Suho looks at him, like Jongdae’s pain hurts him as well. Jongdae closes his eyes and gives himself five seconds – which turns into ten seconds – before he disengages himself, taking Suho’s arm off his waist.

“He’s using me,” Jongdae says quietly. “You need to – “

Luhan slams into Jongdae, curling Jongdae’s lips. This Luhan-Jongdae leans in and presses his lips to Suho’s fiercely, arms tangling around Suho’s neck.

“I love you,” Jongdae says desperately, as Suho jerks away. “Suho, I love you, I’ve always loved you, I need you, why did you choose Kyungsoo over me,  _why_ ”

 

“I get your point, Luhan,” Suho says, holding Jongdae at arms-length. “What do you want?”

“I only want you,” Jongdae says, voice breaking. It feels unreal. Jongdae’s flush with humiliation and drowning- insensate – Jongdae drops to his knees once Luhan releases him, gasping. Real tears, actual tears, are welling at the corners of his eyes.

 Jongdae’s not even – Jongdae doesn’t even have – Jongdae doesn’t even know the truth can be so toxic. So wrong.

He’s whining, he knows. Short, broken, tense noises. But Jongdae can’t stop. Can’t seem to stop.

“Jongdae,” Minseok says urgently, kneeling in front of him. Minseok touches his hands. They’re clenched so tight it hurts, but Jongdae can’t seem to unclench them.

Jongdae can’t breathe. It’s like he’s not getting enough air.

“Chen,” Suho says tersely, dropping to his knees as well. Jongdae squeezes his eyes shut, tries not to look. Or think. It’s not working.

Fingers dig into Jongdae’s wrists. Jongdae tries to pull away, finds that he can’t.

“Chen,” Suho’s saying, and,

Jongdae says, “ _get off me,_ ” ugly and hissing. Says it with a  level of hate he didn’t know he could have.

“Chen-“

“ _Stop touching me!_ ” He screams it, actually, forcibly rips a wrist away. “ _Get off me!_ ”

The room spins, there are too many eyes staring, staring, staring. Jongdae’s choking on air.

He keeps screaming, screaming, because people keep crowding in. They all want Jongdae but no one wants to keep him. The tight hold on his wrist, the force holding him to the floor – waves of helplessness, each one cresting higher than the last, keep lapping over him.

It makes him fight back with an intensity that deafens and sickens him. Jongdae’s clawing like a mad thing, heaving against the mass of arms and voices that are trying to keep him in place.

The familiar settling of Luhan into him snaps Jongdae. He pushes back as fiercely as he can, for a few second he  _is_ Luhan- settled calmly on the edge of a table, watching Suho and the Desun soldiers hold a flailing, screaming Jongdae down –  Minseok among them, face white. Luhan’s thinking about what he wants from Suho, but also Jongdae – wondering with a detached calm about how much it hurts – when there’s this moment of realization, when he  _knows_ that Jongdae’s in his head, just like how Luhan usually is in Jongdae’s head.

A lot of anger, but also a flash of interest. Luhan shoves Jongdae back into his own mind easily.

Through the crowd of metal and sea-blue, Jongdae catches sight of Luhan’s smile, the smile that says, you shouldn’t have done that.

 _Fuck you,_ Jongdae mouths. Like he  _cares_ about what Luhan thinks – Jongdae hates Luhan right now, hates him with a rabid intensity. Suho, Suho, Suho. Luhan  - so many years – one heavy secret, divulged in a few moments.

 

**7\. Moonlight**

 

They have a story, one about the woodsman and the phoenix.

 

Lost in a forest, he parted the trees and caught sight of her – hair the colour of a raven’s wing, eyes as dark, cloak of red feathers laid by the side of the small pond.

 

She seemed a being made of moonlight to him. Like the sheen of a pearl, luminous and silent.

 

They said he stole her robes. Without them she was very human; mute, pleading and weak. He loved her, he said.

 

She grew to love him, they said. They had children. But oh, she pined. Every little piece of happiness was shot through by yearning for the feeling of flight that she had once known. 

 

Love, she once wrote, is the ability to hold both love and hate in the same body at once.

 

The stories differ, but they agree she left the woodsman. She drifted, walking aimlessly from town to town. There, she would sing, wordless, and people would gather to listen.

 

Like a comet through the darkness, like the ring of daylight around an eclipse - that was the phoenix. She came and she left, like a long dream.

 

In her wake, the world awakened. People were born – people who were different. They had the same ability to touch the fabric of the world, like her. People who could make rain in the desert. People who could turn rivers into dust on a whim.

 

Creatures were born too. Monsters that stalked the land. Those who could, who were blessed, laid to rest the cursed monsters. These were the first Hunts.

 

People say she gave both disease and cure, both torment and peace. As time passed, Maygea and Desun - May and December, summer and winter, life and death, both sides of the phoenix - the two countries emerged, out of her ashes. 

 

Chanyeol, King of Desun - Yixing, Emperor of Maygea. Desun's succession was planned, organized, neatly handed from generation to generation. Maygea's was - interesting. 

 

Yixing - the original crown prince - was a pawn in the palace games. Everyone said the murder of his parents in front of him struck him mute, and foolish. 

 

When he turned sixteen, however, the Phalanx swore loyalty to him. The Phalanx's General, Kris, led him into the Phoenix's temple and knelt at his feet. Expression serene, like a child, Yixing had touched Kris's head gently.

 

There had been others, other courtiers who supported Yixing's rise to power. Xiumin, a member of the royal class, who had strong ties with the traders. Tao, a merchant himself, with links to the gem mines and plantations. 

 

Luhan, Yixing's constant companion since young, who ripped apart the existing circle of political elite and kept them from forming any resistance to Yixing in the years after that.

 

Even till today, people said that Luhan was the one pulling Yixing's strings - Yixing had moments of lucidity, and he could speak, but at times he would retreat into himself. Again a child. Luhan would speak on his behalf, and no one dared question him.

 

\--

 

Suho on the left, Luhan on the right, Minseok hovering in the background. Baekhyun, Jongdae’s old friend, sits cross-legged on the bed next to him, ignoring the rest of them in favour of Jongdae. Baekhyun holds an ice pack to the bruise on Jongdae’s face. It’s cool and numb, just what Jongdae needs.

 

"We don’t respond to threats,” Suho says coldly.

 

“Go back to Maygea with me.” Brown hair tousled, eyes dancing, Luhan’s  _happy._ He stretches, like a large cat. “Just for two weeks, then you can go.”

 

“Don’t go, Jongdae,” Baekhyun urges, just as Minseok says – “What are you planning?”

 

“Stay out of this,  _Minseok,”_ Luhan says pleasantly, fingering the sleeves of his maroon robe. There are cranes and clouds stitched on it, today.

 

“Who says I need to choose,” Jongdae says shortly. “I don’t want to see any of you.”

 

This can’t be real.

 

"Jongdae- what hold does he have over you?" Baekhyun tries, leaning in close.

 

"Nothing," Jongdae says. "Nothing."

 

"Jongdae, if you don't tell us, we can't help you."

 

What is Jongdae supposed to say? Luhan touches me and I am on my knees begging for him to trample over me, to hold me down until I choke and everything goes dark?

 

"Nothing," Jongdae says. Baekhyun's fists turn white from how hard he's gripping them. “ _Jongdae,_ ” he says, and Jongdae turns away.

 

“It’s only two weeks,” Luhan repeats. He stands. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning, Jongdae,” he calls, as he leaves the small room. Minseok stands clear of him.

 

“You can say it now,” Baekhyun says, turning back to Jongdae. “Jongdae, why did you leave?”

 

There wasn’t a worse question Baekhyun could have started out with. “I just did,” he says defensively. The bed dips as Suho moves to sit beside Baekhyun.

 

Jongdae meets his worried, sincere eyes and jerks away, guilty.

 

“Did I do something?” Suho asks frankly. “Did any of us do something? Was it the last Hunt?”

 

It was me, Jongdae thinks. It was. It still is. Suho’s always been honest and upfront with Jongdae. Jongdae’s the one who keeps secrets.

 

“Was what Luhan said true?” Suho has a slight flush on his cheeks.

 

“No.” Luhan got one thing wrong – Jongdae never asked why, would never ask why. Some questions would always give hurtful answers.

 

Baekhyun’s staring at Jongdae – he knows. Baekhyun was there when Jongdae first met Suho. He was there after Chi fucked Jongdae on bales of hay in the armory and Jongdae had gone home and cried because he thought that someone else touching him would wipe Suho off his skin. It seemed to have done the opposite, in fact. Baekhyun had known, from that evening onwards.

 

Jongdae’s clear about this. This is what he can give Suho – a clear conscience, a life led without fear, worry or concern for Jongdae. The chance to be in a relationship, without any guilt involved. Jongdae likes Suho enough to give him that.

 

This is also Jongdae’s way of giving up – of accepting the pain and sleepless nights and gut-deep, wordless longing - even a year later, Jongdae sleeps and dreams and wakes to Suho. Jongdae’s stuffed full of Suho, and privately he admits that that might always be the case.

 

Seeing Suho always shakes things loose. It’s just that, three years onwards, Jongdae doesn’t want to keep trying. He likes himself enough  - or to put it more clearly – it hurts bad enough that Jongdae wants to run away from all of this.

 

He’s not a hero. He’s just someone that took what people said about love too seriously. That all you had to do was love someone properly and the person would love you back.

 

It’s hard to kill hope, when it’s the thing that makes you smile through the grime of daily life. Jongdae just needs to remember that there was a period in his life where he lived and smiled without Suho. There can be such a time again.

 

Jongdae used to be a fighter, but not everything has to be won.

 

“No,” Jongdae repeats. “You know Luhan, Suho. He twists relationships, turns them into something that they’re not. Don’t listen to him.”

 

\--

 

"You don't have to do this," Suho says. "Chen-"

 

"I'm sorry," Jongdae says. At least the last words he said to Suho were honest.

 

He reaches behind him blindly. Luhan takes his fingers and leads him away.

 

\--

 

Luhan keeps pressing Jongdae, on the journey back to Maygea. He seeps into Jongdae at odd hours, strange times. Sometimes when Jongdae is very angry, Jongdae can make him take a step back.

 

It comes in flashes. Jongdae sees himself - tired. Luhan's remarkably detached from everything.

 

Jongdae thought Luhan would be - wild. Like a lit match, eating its own tail. But that's only half of Luhan. The other half of him sees everything from the inside of a glass case – emotion shelved neatly away.

 

Luhan's planning something for Jongdae. That much is clear. Jongdae just needs to figure out what Luhan has in store before he springs the trap. 

 

\--

 

They end up in Maygea, after a week. Built on the edge of the plains, Maygea straddles the desert and the grasslands. High sandstone walls, blasted a faint pink by the winds, shield the city from view. People- so many people, riding in and out of the city. So much life.

 

\--

Yixing's waiting for them, in a reception room draped with embroidered tapestries and carved wooden chairs. He looks like a king - youthful, commanding, generous. But his gaze is too young - like a child, still curious about the world, still separate from it.

Luhan orbits Yixing. With others, Luhan draws them near him; makes them spin.

 

With Yixing, Luhan cares. He pours tea, arranges snacks, smooths the creases in Yixing's shirt with his fingers. Yixing takes it all calmly, like it's his due. He touches Luhan; above Luhan's eyebrows, curve of his neck, shoulders, fingers.

 

Luhan - touched Jongdae, but Luhan doesn't like people touching him. People don't touch Luhan, Jongdae noticed. Only Yixing touches him. It's as though he's smoothing the wrinkles in Luhan away.

 

"He can push me out," Luhan tells Yixing. 

 

"Show me," Yixing says, intrigued. 

 

Luhan’s robes skim, but never quite touch the floor. Today they’re black, with green bamboo shoots embroidered on them.

 

"I told Suho. About why you didn't want to go back to Desun. I told him he should leave Kyungsoo," Luhan says.

 

"About how you would pick up men who looked like Suho, who felt like Suho - "

 

Suho's always a sore spot. Jongdae slaps Luhan out of his mind.

 

"It’s true," Yixing says. 

 

\--

 

That night, Yixing calls both of them to the Phoenix’s temple. Built with grey stone slabs and columns, the temple is an austere place.

 

In the heart of the temple, Jongdae sees a rectangular pool, left open to the night sky above. There’s no water in it, yet, only stone piping that encircles it. 

 

Yixing stands naked at the far end. Waiting.

 

Luhan disrobes at the edge of the stone steps. Jongdae – takes some convincing, but he strips, too, and walks cautiously down towards Yixing.

 

Luhan drops to his knees in front of Yixing. Jongdae follows, after some hesitation.

 

"I'm sorry, Jongdae," Yixing says gently, as he lays a hand on Jongdae's hair.

 

The tears come first, called by faint music on the air. Pooling in Jongdae's eyes, they cascade over his cheeks.

 

These are tears shot through with longing, longing, longing for -

 

Jongdae can hear voices. A voice, and music. He wants to turn and look, but Yixing's grip on his hair keeps him from turning around. 

 

It's an unsettling feeling. There’s something far-off in the distance- not measured by space, but by dimension- something not here. Something different. 

 

Then the fire licks its way free. Heat gathers and spreads in Jongdae. Sweat begins to bead on his forehand, slide down his cheeks. 

 

It's too hot. Not hot enough. 

 

Out of the corner of Jongdae's eyes, through the tears, he sees water trickling from the stone pipes, crystal clear. They hit the stone floor and spread across the flagstones to curl around their feet. 

 

It should be cold. It is cold, but it's also not cold enough. 

 

Water, lapping its way up Jongdae's ankles. Across his legs, up his thighs. The stone bath fills up in a matter of minutes, and before Jongdae knows it water licks at Jongdae's lips, tickles the underside of his nose - 

 

Jongdae lets it all flow in, because he's burning up inside. The water around him is beginning to sizzle and boil, bubbles rising to the surface. 

 

Jongdae hears someone on the wind. Someone humming. It sounds like a hymn. 

 

\--

 

The next time Jongdae opens his eyes, he's still kneeling in the pool. This time, the water is freezing. Jongdae tries to stand, fails. Pain, sharp pain, shoots through his knees and legs. 

 

Jongdae's shivering. It's still night, and dark out. Jongdae doesn’t understand why his whole body aches, with a dull pain. 

 

Yixing takes a step back. "It's done,"" he sighs. "Jongdae, you heard her."

 

"I - " Jongdae massages his aching legs. He knows what Yixing is asking. "I did," he says, chill exploding down the back of his already numb back. "That-

 

"Phoenix." Yixing nods. "I hear her, all the time."

 

The water swishes. Luhaan wades into the pool, still naked. "Yixing, take a rest."

 

"Didn't you tell him anything, Luhan?"

 

"It's the sixteenth," Luhan says, by way of explanation. 

 

"One day?" Jongdae croaks. One day had passed, without Jongdae knowing. He wants to say,  _you’re all crazy,_ but he heard her. He heard that voice. He thinks of Luhan, and Suho, and of the way they seem to hear something no one else can hear.

 

Jongdae's shivering has developed onto a full-blown chill once he's out of the water. Luhan wraps a robe around him wordlessly. 

 

\--

 

It’s a blur, after that. Yixing says, “show me,” to Luhan, who hesitates as he’s towelling Jongdae down. He puts the towel aside and turns to gaze at Yixing, who doesn’t say a word.

 

Luhan turns back, leans over Jongdae, moonlight silvering his skin. His hair falls into his eyes.

 

Luhan touches Jongdae- encircles his wrists, hard. Jongdae’s breath hitches, even through the fever-sickness he feels creeping up on him.

 

Jongdae opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. 

 

 

**8\. Spiral**

 

“Your voice now. Maybe your mind later, or the use of your body. It comes and it goes, at unexpected times. I see things, Jongdae," Yixing says. They're in a safehouse. The room is sparsely furnished with a bed - that both him and Luhan are on - and a single chair, that Yixing watches them from.

"I see things, and when I touch them, they become real. Luhan knew, once you managed to drive him away. Luhan doesn't have the ability to control minds. What he has is telepathy- to be able to be the other person. Some people, who have been touched by the Phoenix, can turn that link into a two-way exchange. They can be him as well."

"I knew, once I saw you," Yixing continues. "There was a part of the Phoenix, waiting." 

Luhan sighs and sinks into Jongdae, as though by an unspoken command.

\--

A young boy, recognizably Yixing. Jongdae's eyes snag upon the corpses behind him, white shrouds ripped halfway open. 

"I told her -" the boy swallows. "I told her I want to heal my parents. And she - she said - she touched me and everything burned, I thought - but - Luhan, Luhan, she's a liar. It doesn't work."

"Yixing," Luhan says, angry and desperate at the same time. It's a side of Luhan Jongdae has never seen before - a Luhan that has no ready answer. Luhan glances at the stairs leading to the entrance of the cellar. "Yixing, let's go."

Yixing's hand touches Luhan  - Luhan convulses and collapses in searing, raging pain. Luhan can hear voices in the background. Songs.

"It's okay," Luhan says eventually, voice ragged, once he can think straight again. He has to force himself to his feet - he almost falls - and 

There are voices. Luhan is Yixing, experiencing Yixing's worry and fear. 

Luhan retches, stumbles, falls. 

\--

"Seen enough?" Luhan asks, eyes glittering. Jongdae can only blink at him, stunned mute by the force by which Luhan thrust him out of his mind.

Yixing - Yixing touched Luhan, like he touched Jongdae. And Yixing made something in both of them different.

Luhan flops onto his back, away from Jongdae.

"You can see, I'm not lying." Yixing says. He reaches over, grasping Jongdae's chin and turning Jongdae to face him. While Jongdae wasn't looking, Yixing came closer. He's lying next to Jongdae- almost touching, but not quite - right now. "I change people. Not everyone survives the change."

Yixing's so close. He looks peaceful, and kind, ready to fall asleep on the white pillow him and Jongdae share. "You might not, without us, Jongdae." His hand is warm on Jongdae's cheek, tracing the almost-faded bruise. "If I were you, I wouldn't go back to Desun. But of course, I can't make you do anything you don't want to."

Jongdae's throat works. 

"- threat," he finally says. It's as though the past few minutes didn't happen, and he never lost his voice.

"I'm not," Yixing says. His eyes are soft, liquid pools. "The two weeks will be up tomorrow. You have the right to go back to Desun. No one will stop you."

"I will," Jongdae says. It's not the smartest thing to say, but Jongdae has been - things have been to complicated and Jongdae doesn't want any part of anything. 

Yixing watches Jongdae, brow furrowing. 

"They locked Yixing and I away for weeks, after they found us in the cellar. If I had been around more people in those few weeks, I would have killed myself." Luhan's voice is crisp, contemplative. "I kept hearing people's thoughts. Being them. It took a while before I could pretend to be normal again. I want to see what happens to you, Jongdae."

The lights above shatter in a shower of glass. Yixing yanks the blanket up to cover them - Luhan rolls off the bed, robes flying. 

Blue, crackling electricity dances in place of the bulbs, sizzling. Jongdae can smell it - like freshly-struck lightning, like ozone. 

It expands and contracts in time with Jongdae's breathing. 

Yixing scrambles away onto the window sill, as the sheets around Jongdae crisp, leaving a human-shaped indent in the covers. Jongdae's left sitting on the wooden base of the bed.

"You could touch someone and kill them," Yixing observes.

Jongdae wants to accuse Yixing of staging the whole scene, but he can see for himself the thin, blue crackling layer that seems to leak from his pores. It flares, just as Jongdae's heart begins to jackrabbit in fear.

It doesn't hurt. Instead, it tickles, drawn to Jongdae's palm as he cautiously runs a hand down his left shoulder. 

The wooden bedframe gives way, leaving Jongdae to land heavily on the floor. Like this, only his shoulders and head are above the formerly whole bed.

"Turn it off," Jongdae croaks.

"It's yours," Yixing says, "tell it that." Nimbly, he climbs across the bed to the floor where Luhan is, avoiding Jongdae.

"Arrange for him to go back tomorrow, Luhan," Yixing instructs. Luhan nods slowly, staring at Jongdae.

"What do you want?"

"The stakes are higher," Yixing says. "I don't want you to be a citizen, Jongdae. I think you'd be good for Luhan. I want you to be sworn to him."

There's a flash so bright Jongdae's eyes have to close. Pieces clatter to the bed, one striking Jongdae's shoulder. 

Electricity wreathes the pieces of the broken light fixture, eating into the sheets, wood, the floor. Jongdae chokes back the rising panic - he can't panic. 

Outside the window, lightning flashes in the distance. 

"Yixing," Luhan says. 

"Yes!"Jongdae says, just as Luhan goes - "No."

Lightning flashes outside again. Jongdae can feel it inside of him - a quick rush - as sudden as the white light that floods their eyes.

"Any closer, and it would hit us." Luhan sounds mildly intrigued. He lands a hand on Jongdae's shoulder, uncaring of the electricity.

He winces at the pain - and then it's gone. Jongdae's still scared and panicking, but he knows that it's over.

"Physical touch with others like you helps." Yixing bends over Jongdae, picking the debris off him. "Luhan will be a very important person for you, Jongdae."

Luhan should retailiate.But his usual careless cruelty seems to have disappeared, in the face of Yixing. Luhan's different around Yixing.

Luhan treats Yixing well. Jongdae doesn't know which side of Luhan is the real Luhan, but he knows enough to realize that Yixing might be the only person Luhan really cares about. 

Knowingly or not, Jongdae had thought Luhan had wanted him. Had thought that attention in itself was good enough. 

Seeing Luhan with Yixing is an eye-opener, because Jongdae has to admit to himself how little he gets from Luhan. How much Luhan doesn't see him as a person.

It's easier to let Luhan lift himself from the bed without feeling much now. 

Even while Luhan wipes him down in the next room, too close for comfort - even while Luhan coaxes a fretful, feverish Jongdae into sleep, too near to be ignored - Jongdae doesn't react much, realization a sick, tiring feeling heavy on him. 

Jongdae thinks he can taste ashes, deep in the back of his throat.

\--

Luhan has papers for Jongdae to sign in the morning. Jongdae signs away his life through sleep-bleary eyes, continuously yawning. He'd only heard of these in stories, of people who gave up their citizenship so they could be sworn to a blessed one. It's a measure of how tired Jongdae is, that he doesn't make a fuss about this.

Luhan leaves him alone for the rest of the day. Jongdae drifts in and out of sleep, restless.

\--

In the evening, as dusk is falling, Yixing tattoos the back of Jongdae's neck. The ink Yixing uses is a strange, malleable one - it shifts from red to black, then back to red again. Red, the color of an amber, and black. Bottomless black. 

Yixing holds a mirror up for Jongdae. It's a simple spiral that seems black at some angles and red at others. Jongdae smooths the back of his hair over it, and does his best to forget that it's there.

\--

Luhan's first task for Jongdae is to find his way to his house. 

All Jongdae has seen in Maygea is the small safehouse they've spent most of their time in, and the Phoenix temple. Going into the bustling city at dusk, it doesn't take long before Jongdae is lost. The houses are all built out of the same sturdy sandstone material, and tend to be distinguished only by the clotheslines, people, plants outside of them. To add to the confusion, the roads are small and packed, massed with throngs of people. 

Jongdae turns a corner, and before him is a wide set of stairs leading down to a bustling marketplace. Striped tarpaulin covers each of the market stalls. From where Jongdae is standing, the place is a grid of colors. 

The stalls have a strange order to them. Jongdae tries walking into it and finds himself plunged into a world of vegetables and fruits. He walks a few more steps, and there are people hawking textiles. Blankets, clothes, tableclothes. A few more, and there's an open area with people seated on mats, selling trinkets. Small mirrors, beads, bits of jewellery. Tiny paintings. 

He finds other areas. A row of teahouses. A garden, thronged with people holding birds in cages. A series of shops selling gems, heavily guarded by guardsmen. 

It's fully night when Jongdae finds it. He knows that Luhan wouldn't want to be too far away from Yixing or the happenings in the city, so he picks an area between the Temple, the Guildhouse and the biggest market to search. Soon enough, he finds the house. The exterior is clean and neat, a row of ferns lining the front of the house. It looks like normal people live there every day.

It's unlocked. Luhan's inside, at the low tea table, bent over a pack of takeout. It looks like noodle soup.

There's an untouched pack beside him. Jongdae sits hesitantly, reaching for it.

"What did you learn?" Luhan asks, through a mouthful of soup. Jongdae reaches for tissue, dabbing at the corners of Luhan's mouth. It's like a habit.

"I found a market," Jongdae says.

\--

The next week passes in the same way. Luhan has assignments for Jongdae, each day. They start out simple. Luhan has Jongdae look for places. The taverns, where small Hunts are posted. The shipyard, where airships take flight. Lower Maygea, which is in the old part of Maygea, the one with duller buildings, more cramped streets, more people - even the huge sewers underground, where the true poor of the city stay. 

Luhan has dinner for Jongdae each day, and breakfast, but he doesn't give Jongdae any money. Jongdae takes to working odd jobs around the city. The easiest to get is moving goods at the shipyard, but it's hard, backbreaking work that doesn't leave much time for Jongdae to look for whatever place Luhan has him looking for that day. 

He writes letters for people, or reads documents written in the language of Desun. His customers are not well-off - those who can afford it, like the traders, already have translators - but Jongdae gets food, a few coins. Enough to pass each day.

At night - or in the morning, Luhan keeps an unreliable schedule - Luhan asks Jongdae questions. Pointed, sharp questions - like - which routes do the airships ply, and why? Which cities let them use their airspace, and why? Who live in Lower Maygea, and how did they get there? 

Luhan has a small library, which Jongdae learns to navigate. He keeps documents alongside books - old treaties, oral histories, trade documents. Jongdae's often in there, looking for answers.

It gets harder, when Luhan gives Jongdae errands. Find this person, and ask him this. Get this old brooch from one of the pawnshops around the city. Look for traders that deal in herbs from the eastern province of Maygea, and get an inventory of what they have.

It gets harder - also - because Luhan has Jongdae do exercises with his electricity. Luhan starts small with circuit boards, but Jongdae finds it easier with bigger objects - Luhan brought Jongdae to an abandoned quarry, once. It felt good, to let electricity crawl on his skin and run loose in the air, without any care. Luhan had spread a mat on the ground and laid on his back to watch the show, tinted glasses protecting his eyes. 

\--

Luhan keeps Jongdae busy. It works, because Jongdae's so caught up in adjusting to life in Maygea he doesn't think about - everything.

Still, Jongdae hears things, about Luhan and Yixing. People respect them for being fair, but they fear them more. Yixing's even more unpredictable than Luhan on the best of days. 

Jongdae knows peace doesn't last for long, but he thinks he can get used to life like this - wants it, very much.

Luhan’s there when Jongdae’s upset. His thumb rubs circles on Jongdae’s palm, on Jongdae’s hip, just behind his ear.

It’s become a habit, when both of them were purposely not looking. They start out with Jongdae in stiff silence and Luhan uncaring, pushing past Jongdae’s boundaries without blinking an eye. They touch just enough to calm Jongdae down, to chase the building electricity away.

Jongdae grows to rely on this, and Luhan gets used to reaching for Jongdae even before the light bleeds from his skin.

 

**9\. Deep Waters**

 

To Jongdae, Luhan is like water. Soft and clear, like a bubbling brook, around Yixing. Relentless, like the hungry ocean, towards everyone else. Still and quiet, like the deepest waters, when he's not looking at or touching or hurting anyone else.

 

People tend to unfold, over time, to be more interesting and engaging the better you know them. The more used to Luhan Jongdae gets, the more colorless he seems. Like it's a relief to not feel so much. There's not as much of Luhan digging his way under Jongdae's skin, as though he’s trying to fracture the bone and soul beneath. 

 

Luhan's not serious. He's just clear, like a piece of glass. 

 

Luhan listens, when Jongdae tells him things. He asks thoughtful questions and gives considered answers. The city guard gets investigated for corruption a week after Jongdae passes Luhan a list of names, dates, bribes paid and amount. Disgruntled people had been talking - the bribes didn't come back with expected results.

 

"I heard they got taken away," Jongdae says. "What's going to happen to them?"

 

"Ask the priests," Luhan says, without opening his eyes. He's catnapping, tired, in Jongdae's bed. 

 

Jongdae had been taking it all - like a game. Like something he could do and be good at. 

 

It's not that hard. Jongdae's an easy person to get along with. He's made friends from so many parts of Maygea within a few months. Naturally curious as well, Jongdae's made it a point to find out how everything works. How this city works.

 

He's only beginning to realize that this knowledge comes with consequences. 

 

\--

 

What Luhan and Yixing teach Jongdae starts to take on a darker turn, as well. 

 

Yixing brings Jongdae to the Guildhouse basement. Jongdae tries to run from the room full of corpses, but Yixing’s too fast for that. “They’re dead,” he promises. “It’s those who are alive that you should be worried about.”

 

“Courtiers die from the strangest reasons,” Yixing explains patiently to Luhan, who’s disdainfully picking a way through the row of bodies Yixing has on the floor. “It’s a good range of examples for Jongdae to see. Just enough variety.”

 

Yixing teachs Jongdae anatomy, arms elbow-deep in embalmed corpses. Sometimes they use fresh ones, at the morgue in the hospital.

 

Yixing also teaches Jongdae about plants. Which plants paralyse, deafen, mute, - what plants that can kill without leaving a trace, as well.

 

Luhan’s rarely there, but when he is, he’s tucked away at a desk in the corner, finishing his missives.

 

Jongdae’s never with them in broad daylight, though. Never in the streets. He never meets anyone else from Court, either. It’s as though they don’t want people to know of his existence.

 

Not that Jongdae minds, of course.

 

It’s Yixing, Jongdae and Luhan, for a while. Jongdae knows they’re preparing him for something, but under the hot desert sun and cool, safe nights, he doesn’t want to think about it.

\--

 

The time comes, eventually.

 

Jongdae grits his teeth and wants to turn away, but doesn’t. He's conflicted. Luhan has the man holding a letter opener over his own knee, meaningfully making tiny cuts in the skin. 

 

Luhan's temper is on a short fuse. Recent shipments of reed have been hijacked midway to Maygea. To Luhan - and Jongdae - it doesn't make sense. Reeds are not a luxury commodity. The only place that buys reeds is Maygea, and they buy them at dirt-cheap prices. 

 

The poorer citizens use reeds as a filtering system, to make the water from the sewers taste palatable. Unless someone is waging war on the lower classes of Maygea - which is improbable -there would be no reason for them to do so. 

 

To make matters worse, suppliers in the city have been slow at reordering the goods. Someone is engineering this situation, and Luhan just can't find out who. 

 

The man screams in pain as Luhan flicks his hand. The knife - it grinds against bone, making a wet, painful sound. Jongdae winces. Luhan's just impatient  -  _I don't have all day,_  he says, and the man intensifies the pressure on the knife.

 

"This will get around," Luhan says to Jongdae, as the man dissolves into shrieks and sobs. "It's a dead end for now - hopefully this will shake up something."

 

Luhan - he was angry, but his words are clear and unclouded by emotion.

 

Deep waters describe Luhan the best. Smooth and unruffled above, alien inside.

\--

 

Luhan's worried. Jongdae thinks it's nothing to be worried about. He does what Luhan says anyway, and goes back to Lower Maygea again. 

It's Kai that he looks for. 

**10\. Hawk**

_If you want something very, very badly, let it go free.  If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever.  If it doesn’t, it was never yours to begin with._

 

Kai owns a hawk. It’s a desert hawk, an especially rough, scrappy breed usually disdained by the upper class. But Jongdae likes it – likes the barred cream and brown bars across its wings, the heft of its wickedly sharp beak, the way it can’t stand still on Kai’s arm. It’s impatient with everyone, because all it wants to do is hunt. It wants to be loosed at a target; to take to the air in a flurry of wings, then plummet, claws outstretched, vindictive and accurate. It always has an arm, and an appreciative owner, to go back to.

Jongdae had approached Kai, because of his hawk. Kai had a reputation for being prickly, but he’d been amused by Jongdae’s obvious fascination with Jongin, and how little Jongdae wanted to talk to Kai himself.

“I can talk,” Kai had said. “Jongin can’t.” Jongdae had made a noise and went back to examining Jongin, wishing he could get close enough to touch that hooked beak.

In Maygea, falconry is a privileged sport. Almost everything Kai earns – or wins -  goes to the upkeep of his hawk. Almost none to Kai. He’s skinny and tanned, a bit wild, the way that living on the streets with not enough food does to a person.

“How did you start?” Jongdae asked curiously. It took years, years of experience and investment before anyone could become a falconer. Kai’s just a boy from Lower Maygea. “Used to work for a Lord.” Kai said finally. “He left Maygea, a while back. Gave me Jongin.”

Jongdae attends all the Hawk races that Kai enters Jongin in. Eventually, Kai’s used to him being there. When Jongin comes back, prey dangling loosely from his strong claws, he comes back to Jongdae and Kai.

Kai lets Jongdae come along when he trains Jongin out in the desert. These outings take Jongdae half the day and leave him with barely enough time to do anything else, but he goes anyway. The sweep of Jongin’s huge wingspan, the lazy wingbeats as Jongin coasts above – it’s freeing.

Eventually, Jongdae starts to look forward to seeing Kai, not just Jongin. Luhan’s the only person Jongdae’s sees on a regular basis these days. Most people like Jongdae, but Jongdae’s not around them often, not with the erratic errands Luhan sends him on. It’s nice to have Kai, who remembers bits about Jongdae – like that Jongdae was sick two days ago. Kai even brings him home-cooked soup.

After Suho and Luhan – also, Yixing’s sharp comment about how Jongdae could kill someone just by touching them, Jongdae seems to have lost the ability to care for people. He drifts in this vacuum, where he knows he can survive no matter who he loses. This is emotional need sliced thin to the bare minimum.

Jongdae knows the right words to say and the right things to do, and most of the time, he still cares. It’s just, when people aren’t there, it’s easy to forget about them.

When Kai sticks around, Jongdae gets scared, because it’s hard to get used to living without people but easy to get attached to them. Kai looks sullen but he has a sharp wit and a lovely smile that he brings out for Jongdae. He takes Jongdae’s moods – the sudden frustration, the empty days where Jongdae doesn’t talk, the days where Jongdae wants to lie on his back in the desert and doze – calmly, like they’re all the same to him. In return, Jongdae helps Kai to buy food – mice- for Jongin when Kai has to do extra shifts at the dock, buys an extra shirt or pants or two that he spots at the bazaar for Kai.

He feels this need to talk to Kai, or just to be around him. It’s safe.

But Kai’s well-liked in Lower Maygea. He’s young, but people listen to him when he talks. Jongdae’s alternately proud and also jealous, because Jongdae wants someone to put him first. And Kai can’t do that. Kai’s an orphan but he’s rich with relationships, from the kids he mentors to the friends he has. If Jongdae walks with Kai into Lower Maygea, Kai’s gone from his side within a few minutes.

What Jongdae  _really_ wants, and what Kai can give, don’t match. Jongdae feels sorry and angry in turn. Sorry, because this is all and only him, wanting with a need that is blind, deep and selfish. Angry, because anger is the only possible option to a fear that threatens to cripple Jongdae – a fear wide with familiar memories. Raw endings.

This is Jongdae, leaping towards anyone that seems like they  _could_ be. Could be what? Jongdae doesn’t want to say. Could be the right one? Could be the one that would stick around? Not friendship, not love. Need, fuelled by a loneliness impossible to fill.

 

\-- 

"It's getting bad," Kai says quietly. "We never thought to stock up on reeds, and the little we did have seems to be gone. In a few days, Lower Maygea is going to face a water shortage."

 

"That’s too fast,” Jongdae says. “Can’t you start them rationing?”

 

“Two weeks,” Kai shrugs. “We’ve always only had enough. It's always been there, no one thought reeds would run out - what are the people on top doing, anyway? " Kai makes a frustrated sound. "Everyone's scared. And all those on top do is spend the city's money on Hunts. Hunts to make temples and priests richer, but where does that leave the rest of us? Nowhere!"

 

Jongdae makes appropriately soothing noises Kai's not the first person to say this. In all the places that Jongdae has been to, there has been simmering resentment against Luhan and Yixing. The city is expanding and growing, but the amount they spend on Hunts is exorbitant. Phalanx members get paid as much as a moderately successful trader these days.

 

The water situation will aggravate that. Jongdae sighs.

 

\--

 

"Can't we open up water sources to them?"

 

"No," Yixing says curtly. "The temple sources are not to be touched."

 

"It's pretty serious," Jongdae warns. "They're beginning rationing. In a week, they might break out into protests."

 

"I know," Yixing says. "But no. We can’t.”

 

\--

 

Kai takes a swig from Jongdae's flask as Jongdae flips through the list of flights that he purloined from the Airship office. 

 

"What are you looking at?" Kai leans in to peer over Jongdae's shoulder.

 

"I'm tracking the merchant ships." Jongdae makes pencil marks against the names of certain ships, namely those ferrying goods from merchant houses that ship reeds. 

 

"The ships don't even get here," Kai says skeptically. "How does that help?"

 

"Maybe we can predict which ship is going to get hijacked," Jongdae says. He compares his marked list to the list of hijacked ships. 

 

Sure enough, there are three houses whose airships get hijacked. 

 

"If I was them, I'll vary my schedules," Kai says. 

 

"Why aren't they?" Jongdae frowns. "They've had eight ships hijacked, between the three of them."

 

"If I'm them, I'll have an insider feeding me information."

 

"No, these ships keep to a schedule," Jongdae says, tapping the list with his pencil. "Those that leave on Monday and Wednesday get hijacked. It's been so for the past three weeks."

 

"It's like they want to get robbed," Kai says. "Traders."

 

"If I can get on one of those ships, I can find out why."

 

"Armed airships are not a match for these sky pirates," Kai says, amused. "What makes you think you can stop them?"

 

"It's good to see the ship leave, at least. I'll know more there, for sure."

 

"That's good thinking," Kai agrees. "But don't put yourself there. I'll go. These are my people, Jongdae."

 

\--

 

"Jongdae?" Kai hisses, from under the weight of a cargo box. Jongdae grins, not feeling his own smile. Kai had found his way onto the same airship as Jongdae. 

 

"Hey, don't touch that," someone warns, bumping Kai aside. "Don't touch the goods, you couldn't afford to get him to even watch you jerk off."

 

Jongdae makes a face at the dock worker and scurries away, before Kai can say anything else. The choker around his neck makes it clear what Jongdae's here as - he got hired as one of the hosts, to provide on-board entertainment for the guests. 

 

"Oh, there you are." Ryeowook tuts, tugging at Jongdae's clothes. "Get changed, and go and wait in the hall. Put on some - you look like you've never seen the right end of a brush - I'll do it for you. Just, get changed."

 

Luhan likes sex, everyone knows that. Working in tandem, Jongdae and Luhan had set up a show to put Jongdae onboard the airship with Luhan. Outside the teashop where Luhan met Ryeowook, the ship's guest manager, Jongdae had set up a stall to sell his translation services. Ryeowook had soon noticed Luhan watching Jongdae, and after Luhan had left, he'd approached Jongdae with an offer. To provide on-board entertainment for Luhan for this trip to Nabreus, and back. He'd given Jongdae a choker, then, as a token.

 

Ryeowook's going for the androgynous approach with Jongdae, it seems. He has Jongdae in a white, loose robe, and is smudging Jongdae's eyes with ink. 

 

"You have a nice smile," Ryeowook says. 

 

"I'm scared," Jongdae confesses. "It's Lord Luhan."

 

"It’ll be  _great_ ," Ryeowook reassures. "You're not the first street urchin people picked off the streets for him. They all came back fine - if very worn out, if you know what I mean! He's not as cruel in bed as he is in - well, life, they say he’s sweet, even! And you have a nice bonus waiting for you after all of that."

 

\--

 

 

"Nice mouth," Luhan says crudely, cupping Jongdae's jaw. Behind Luhan, Ryeowook mouths - suck him -

 

It's surreal. Jongdae kneel between Luhan's legs, resting his head on Luhan's inner thigh. Around them, other boys are doing the same thing as well. Jongdae can hear the clink of belt buckles. 

 

Jongdae slides a hand into Luhan's robes carefully. Luhan flips his robes open without a pause, spreading his legs wider to accommodate Jongdae. 

 

People - all the lords and courtiers - they're discussing business, and the pirates, like they don't have people sucking them off. It's like they're having appetizers. 

 

Luhan's barely aroused. Jongdae focuses on easing him out of his underwear, stroking his cock with a hand. 

 

It's all about power. 

 

Mouth full of a familiar taste, Jongdae sucks Luhan off leisurely, attention focused on the conversation above. Luhan's getting hard, but he's not interested, Jongdae can tell. He plays with Jongdae's fringe, rubbing the hair between his fingers. 

 

"-there was a crewman eyeing your boy, just now," someone says to Luhan. 

 

"Oh," Luhan says, disinterested. Ryeowook picks up on it, though. "Which one was that? I noticed one that had an air about him. Young, lean, tanned, a bit wild - "

 

"That's the one," the man said. "The kid here fairly ran away from him."

 

"It would be a sight," Ryeowook says thoughtfully. Jongdae can't hide the sudden tension flooding him. Not Kai.

 

Luhan grips the back of Jongdae's neck, forcing him down deeper. Jongdae's hands clench, throat fluttering. Luhan's hips jerk, once. 

 

"Luhan likes that idea." Ryeowook claps his hands, pleased. "Get that crewman, Djbe, would you-"

 

Luhan laughs, low, hoarse.

 

Jongdae knows he's supposed to hide his feelings better, but he can't stop the blood from retreating from his face as the guard's footsteps fade into the distance. 

 

Kai's a friend. A good friend. Jongdae's fingers clench in Luhan's robes. 

 

\--

 

"Oh, come on, I'll pay," Ryeowook cajoles. "You're a healthy young man, aren't you? You both are."

 

Kai has his lips pressed stubbornly together. 

 

Jongdae feels his breath tight in his throat. He wants to keep his worlds separate from one another. Kai’s someone Jongdae wants to impress and keep by his side for a long time.

 

Kai’s going to see Jongdae for the person he  _really_ is. And the thought – Jongdae should have been prepared for this – the thought – Jongdae – Jongdae – Kai should know, Jongdae doesn’t mean it. Can’t mean it. Jongdae can’t do this. The thought of Kai close, hot, sends chills down Jongdae’s spine. He’s alternately hot and horrified.

 

Kai’s scared, as well. He could refuse. Jongdae could refuse. Kai’s face is clouding, stormy, but Jongdae can see the worry in the tense line of his shoulders.

 

It's just that, there are stakes here. Actual stakes. Jongdae can't get thrown off the airships, and neither can Kai. They need to stay on it. 

 

This is bigger than you, or Kai, Jongdae reminds himself.

 

"He's cute," Jongdae whispers to Luhan, shyly. Loud enough that Ryeowook can hear. 

 

"He's a street-bred cat, not like you," Luhan says, amused. He's actually smiling. It's a rare sight. Ryeowook can't be more pleased than he already is.

 

Jongdae smiles at Kai, and it's - Jongdae's someone else. Kai's cute and Jongdae's horny. It's not the first time.

 

If anything, liking Suho did teach him this. How to put himself aside so completely and thoroughly so he could do anything, in those few moments.

 

Jongdae hasn't been touched by someone other than Luhan, not since that night in Yixing's temple. Kai's hands are a bit bigger than Luhan's, and rougher, with calluses. He touches Jongdae with a kind of hesitation that makes Jongdae want to scream because he has to  _make_ himself stay in place and not back away or lean in.

 

It could be worse. 

 

\--

It’s all wrong. Kai’s hands on Jongdae are wrong; the unhappy twist of his lips is wrong. The warmth is right. Jongdae likes people touching him, no matter who they are. But like this, Kai and Jongdae, something that wasn’t supposed to happen – this is something that will splinter them apart. Crack Jongdae, at least.

 

To be close enough that the furrow in his eyebrows is obvious, to be close enough to feel him mouth sorry, close enough that how wrong this fit is can’t be denied – this is too close, and still not close enough.

 

\--

In their room, Luhan turns to Jongdae, and Jongdae says, smiling, “that was better than expected.”

 

Luhan lets Jongdae have his words. He looks at Jongdae, considering, then turns away, removing his gloves.

 

Jongdae cries in the shower. He thought he was numb, but he doesn’t – he doesn’t know what he’s crying for. For not having anyone else to blame, maybe. For walking into the same situation again and again and yet it’s different because he told himself that this was different and Kai is different and Kai’s only a friend, it’s better this way, it’s better because it’s easier to keep friends than people Jongdae likes. It’s better this way and it’s better that Jongdae  _knows_ now, so Jongdae can stop hoping and be free, with a heart that doesn’t jump for someone else.

 

It’s different and Jongdae’s learning. This time, at least, he’s better. It’s better because Kai was a good friend, Kai talked to Jongdae and cared about him. It wasn’t just Jongdae building castles and peoples and lives in his mind, falling for people on pedestals (or horses, for Luhan) in his mind. It’s better because Kai cared for Jongdae, saw him as a person, even if Jongdae can’t quite do that for himself yet.

 

It’s better and Jongdae’s not stupid. Jongdae can learn. He can learn, it hurts bad enough that

 

Jongdae leans on the clean white tiles and cries into the shower spray. It hurts, and all Jongdae has wanted, for so long, is for it to stop.

 

Jongdae turns away as Luhan enters, hiccupping. The familiar feeling of electricity is spiking.  
 

“It’s storming outside.” Luhan reaches past Jongdae, turns the shower off. Jongdae can’t stifle the sobs; they bounce off the tiles, too loud.

 

Luhan touches Jongdae; the feeling dies away.

 

When Jongdae turns to Luhan, his eyes are wet and wide.

\--

Luhan's voice is familiar enough that Jongdae actually listens. “Come here,” he says.

 

Hand, on the back of his neck, reaching up to trace the spiral for the first time. Jongdae’s legs shake, give way. He slides and slips in the shower. Whatever that was, it felt like an electric shock, one that made him unsteady like a newborn colt. 

 

Jongdae needs certainty. He needs direction. Luhan can give him that. 

 

Luhan half-lifts, half-carries him onto the bed. Jongdae fights, half-hearted anyway, but Luhan’s fast, and clever. He puts Jongdae face-down; yanks down Jongdae's pants, over his ass, to the crook of his knees.

 

Luhan circles Jongdae's asshole with lube, rubbing harshly at the soft, vulnerable skin. Jongdae yowls and hisses and squirms, but Luhan bites down on the spiral - it -

 

Jongdae goes limp, panting. Whining. It made his body tingle, go soft and stupid.

 

Luhan slips a finger in. It's raw and intrusive. 

 

It's a good hurt, though. Makes Jongdae feel-cuts through the haze of strange music, centres him somehow. 

 

Luhan’s breath is hot against Jongdae's collarbone. His other hand digs into Jongdae's exposed hip, hard enough that Jongdae's sure it's going to draw blood. That Luhan is clasping through skin, at the bone and soul below. 

 

Two fingers. Jongdae drops his head to the pillow, whines. Electricity snaps and crackles in his ears, rustles along his skin. 

 

" - " Luhan says, Jongdae can’t hear him over the music and the electricity. Luhan bites down on the spiral again, drawing blood. Jongdae cries out - and - 

 

The electricity's gone. Like someone turned off a switch. 

 

Jongdae can feel Luhan, suddenly. Like everything's magnified, like he's back in the world and Luhan is his new reality. He can feel Luhan's sweat through both of their shirts, the stickiness where Luhan's - hand - 

 

Luhan snuck a hand under Jongdae, when he wasn't noticing. Cupped Jongdae gently. He gives Jongdae's cock a firm stroke, from base to tip. Rough, and hard, ending with a squeeze and a twist at the tip. 

 

Jongdae makes a noise, like he's been shot. 

 

Luhan's pants dig uncomfortably into the soft part of Jongdae's skin. Luhan's blanketing Jongdae, smothering him. It's like falling into deep water - not falling, sinking. Slowly, vision clouded, rocked, swayed, and suffocated thoroughly by a giant force. 

 

Third finger, rough and too full. Luhan tugs at Jongdae's balls, making him slide a knee closer to try and remove Luhan's hand. 

 

Luhan takes his hands away. He flips Jongdae over. Jongdae doesn't understand. Blood rushes in his ears, sings. 

 

Luhan leans over Jongdae, pressing them front to front. Clothed to unclothed. He presses his lips against the corner of Jongdae's lips, then runs a finger across Jongdae's mouth.

 

He has two fingers inside, rubbing across Jongdae's tongue. Tasting faintly like - Jongdae. 

 

Jongdae reaches for his own cock. It's hard and aching, almost too sensitive to really touch. Jongdae has to squeeze his hand between their bodies to do so, and he can feel how hard Luhan is. 

 

"Go on," Luhan says. Jongdae, like a man possessed, jerks himself off slowly, cock crushed between his own naked body and Luhan's hard canvas pants. The difference in textures-one smooth and sticky, one hard and rough- brings with it a new, excruciating pleasure Jongdae never thought of, never imagined before. Jongdae does it the way he likes -fast, hard, one hand rubbing at his own balls, rolling them. Varying the speed and tempo, a few fast strokes with a caress to the tip, then a hard one. 

 

Luhan watches Jongdae's expressions avidly, hungrily. Jongdae flushes, closes his eyes, but that just draws Luhan closer. Luhan tongues Jongdae, runs his tongue against the outer rim of Jongdae's mouth and licks into his mouth, alongside his own fingers. 

 

His hands massage Jongdae's hips, rubbing circles into his skin with the flat of his palm. They draw closer, and closer to Jongdae’s cock, now rubbing at the juncture of his legs and pelvis. It makes Jongdae squirm, because of the warm, tingling feeling that arouses.

 

Then all of a sudden, Luhan's pulling Jongdae's hands off his own cock. Something cold snaps around the base of Jongdae's cock. 

 

Luhan pulls off Jongdae, enough for Jongdae to see that it's a cock ring. 

 

Luhan rolls Jongdae over, again. Jongdae hears the rustling of pants, then Luhan has hands under Jongdae's hips, pulling him up so that he's on his knees, forehead pressed into the mattress in front of him. 

 

Luhan presses in slowly. It's been a long while and most of it is pain. Luhan stops and starts, goes slow. Jongdae bites his own arm and tries not to say, Luhan.

 

The more Luhan inches his way in, Jongdae's muscles stubbornly contracting around the intrusion, the more he presses himself to Jongdae's back. It's skin to skin, sticky, this time. Like a heatwave, creeping over the desert. It brings a soft, sour, tingling sensation with it, one that seems to liquefy Jongdae's muscles. 

 

Luhan's arms slide along Jongdae's. Encircling him. Entrapping him. 

 

It's hard to breathe, pressed to the bedsheets like this. Jongdae relishes the sensations - of being taken apart, rebuilt as a barely moving, barely breathing creature. Something that just has to feel, his own pleasure suspended for someone else’s.

 

Luhan slams the last few inches in. At the same time, his hands slide to Jongdae's wrists, digging in firmly. 

 

It's this tension, between being held down and the molten, gleaming arousal that leaks through Jongdae that does it. 

 

It's like Luhan held him down enough that Jongdae learned to breathe underwater. 

 

Like Jongdae fell through the bottom of deep water, into the sky below.  The feeling of helplessness isn't as restrictive, doesn't ride with the edge of fear - the locked thrusts, the uncomfortable pain, the lack of air - Jongdae pants in time with Luhan, listening to his seized, stifled breathing. 

 

Luhan feels the change in Jongdae, feels the way his muscles go slack and easy. It tips him over his own edge, embarrassingly early. Jongdae listens to his small cries, twitching as Luhan comes inside of him.

 

\--

 

Jongdae's tearing, but these are good tears. Luhan loops an arm around Jongdae's waist and smoothes the hair back from his eyes, watching Jongdae closely. Jongdae leans lazily into Luhan's touch, because that's all that matters for now. Even his own still-hard cock doesn't bother him, arousal a far-off, distant thing in the face of Luhan's attention. 

 

For this moment, Jongdae doesn't need to be himself. He just needs to be good for Luhan. He can be, he knows it. 

 

This must be how Kai’s hawk feels; invincible, set free, secure and sure of a waiting arm below.

**11\. Scarlet’s Walk**

Did the Phoenix love the woodsman? Most people say she did, that it was a star-crossed romance.

Jongdae thinks the answer is obvious. She left, after all.

Is it still love, this longing? Is it still love if you can’t stand to be around the person; if you’d rather be lonely and empty on your own, than love someone and hurt everyday?

Others say that she hated him.

Is it that easy, to hate someone who has been around for you for so long?

Jongdae thought about this, because of Suho and Luhan. He’s come to the conclusion that she wanted to leave, because she didn’t know, as well. Maybe she was walking and walking and waiting for an answer to emerge. Maybe she left because it hurt less, that way.

They call her journey Scarlet’s Walk. Jongdae thinks of this, every time he leaves someone. Every time he leaves or is left; every time he makes a choice or something happens and something inside him is changed. Loss, and its indelible mark, charting Jongdae’s path.

Warmer, colder, quieter, louder, bitter, sweet. Scarlet’s Walk.

\--

Jongdae doesn’t need to pretend anything, for the last few hours on the plane.

 He leans against Luhan’s leg, idly playing with the fabric of his robe. Grey, today, the color of Jongdae’s mood. The thought comes and goes, slips away like a breeze. It’s not important; only Luhan is, now.

Ryeowook bends to pet Jongdae, surprised. Jongdae snaps playfully at him, and Luhan tugs warningly on his hair.

“Good choice,” Luhan compliments. Ryeowook breaks out into a bemused smile. “He seems...different.”

Luhan traces Jongdae’s eyelids; obediently, Jongdae closes them. He sits and breathes patiently, stilled by the implicit command. Hooded, jessed, tamed.

“Is he.”

“I’m glad you like him, Lord Luhan,” Ryeowook says. “Would you... like to borrow him while on land?”

“He’ll follow.”

Jongdae doesn’t have to play the role of a pet, because for those few hours, he  _is_ one.

\--

Jongdae comes back different. He comes back loose and easy, but also clear. Transparent, holding nothing inside of him. He’s already showered and dressed by the time Luhan’s back in the Nabreus room they share.

“What do I have to do?”

Luhan pauses, then comes to sit on the bed next to him. He traces Jongdae’s lips in a gesture Jongdae’s familiar with.

The room’s bugged. There are people listening in.

“I have business.” Luhan stands. “Don’t bother coming back here.” He tosses Jongdae a few coins. “Get some food, then go back to the airship.”

Snoop around the airship, he means.

\--

The airship’s a medium-sized, round vessel about the size of a five-storey building. About half is taken up by huge, cylindrical engines. Discreet rows of silver solar panels line the top of the vessel.

It’s a vessel from the House of Duo. The brown-and-yellow house colors give that way, easily enough.

The guard recognizes Jongdae and smirks. “So early?” It’s the same person that told Ryeowook and Luhan about Kai.

Jongdae smiles slowly. “I’m free tonight,” he says. He’s thinking of how natural he can make a lightning strike look. Perhaps an accident with the circuits, on board.

“Nah,” the guard says. He chucks Jongdae under his chin. “You’re cute, but not tonight. Soon.”

Jongdae’s vision is almost black. A deep, yawning, waiting anger is building inside of him.

But Jongdae’s better than that. He keeps it down, waves at the guard and enters.

Back in Luhan’s room, Jongdae lets go and feels – rides the electricity through the vessel, through the wires. He usually doesn’t try it without Luhan, but Jongdae’s furious enough that he doesn’t care.

He comes back with a rough idea of how the vessel is shaped. Where the switches and lightbulbs are, and how they fit together. He can only go to the places where electricity is flowing now, which are the engines and some rooms, but it’s enough.

Someone’s knocking. Jongdae opens the door, rubbing his eyes.

It’s Kai. Caught off-guard, Jongdae can only stare.

Kai enters, closing the door behind him. He looks tired, and worried.

“Jongdae.” Kai shifts from foot to food. “Are you-“

It hurts to walk, after both Kai and Luhan, but Jongdae’s not going to say that. “I’m fine.”

“That hurt you.” Kai states it as a fact. “I got you into this.”

Did he? Jongdae wants to snap, to pretend, to sweep all this away. But Kai’s eyes are dark and serious, like his hawk.

There was friendship; Kai having the ability to read Jongdae, cracking the spine to catch sight of the small, dark print. Jongdae can’t lie to Kai.

“Not now,” Jongdae says, tired. He forces a smile.

As if on cue, the door lock closes. Frowning, Jongdae reaches past Kai to try the door. It doesn’t open.

The humming engines rev. Kai moves past Jongdae to the window. “We’re flying,” he says.

“What time is it?”

“Past two.”

They share a long look.

“So the ships aren’t hijacked,” Jongdae says. “They’re purposely flown somewhere else.”

“House Duo is in this.” Kai cocks his head, confused. “So the Houses are in this. Why would they want to take away the reed shipments? The only people they affect are those from Lower Maygea. There’s no profit to be made from these reeds.”

Duo, Cang and Mi. Luhan had never liked them, Jongdae knows. He keeps an extra close watch on these houses.

“Riots.” Jongdae states. “What will happen are protests, and riots. And people are going to go for the Temple, because that’s the only clean source of water. It’s easier than going for the richer Houses, and demanding their filtration systems.”

“ _Yixing._ ” Jongdae knows – he knows. “They’re going for Yixing. And they’re going to – we left without Luhan – they want Luhan out of the way, while they raise a mob against Yixing. And Kris is still out on a Hunt, Xiumin – I’ve never even met him, he left so long ago – Tao – Tao’s out on a trade mission. They’re going to act against Yixing now.”

It’s not a foolproof plan, because most of the Phalanx is loyal to Yixing. But in the confusion, if someone got close enough... Yixing’s power is changing people, turning those who have seeds of the Phoenix in them into blessed ones. Yixing’s not a fighter, not like the rest of them. Yixing, to put it baldly, is a sitting duck, if people get close enough.

“Yixing.” Kai’s looking at Jongdae strangely. No one calls Yixing Yixing – they call him the Emperor, or the High Priest.

“That’s his name,” Jongdae says.

Kai’s a bit suspicious, and Jongdae doesn’t blame him. But Jongdae doesn’t care, because they’re going for Yixing. And Luhan- Luhan, Jongdae knows, can be overwhelmed by a mob. He can’t control so many people at once. That’s the limit of his power.

Luhan can survive. Yixing might not. Jongdae makes his decision right away.

“We need to get this airship back to Maygea.”

“But who will take over, after Yixing?”

It’s a question that stops Jongdae in his tracks. Who will? Another member of the royal line, presumably. None of Yixing’s – coterie, as Luhan calls them mockingly – can rule. Kyuhyun or Yesung, maybe. Eunhyuk. No.

“They need the Phalanx. Whoever’s closest to Kris – Siwon.”  Siwon, who had been out on a number of large-scale Hunts, as well. He had a reputation as a fair commander.

“He might be a better ruler. Yixing and Luhan, they aren’t –they only care about the Hunts. Not the rest of the city.”

“You can stay out of my way, or I can make you.” The words don’t sound like Jongdae’s – they sound like Luhan’s.

But Jongdae means them. When it comes down to it, when he has to choose between Maygea and Yixing, there’s no competition.

“Why do you care about them so much? You live in Lower Maygea like us, you know how little they care. You – how Luhan treated you, you felt it –“

“Kai,” Jongdae says. Luhan on Jongdae, Luhan under Jongdae. Luhan, part of Jongdae, for better or worse. Jongdae has so very little left, he hoards whatever he has.

It’s not that Jongdae doesn’t hate Luhan, for everything that he has done to Jongdae. Jongdae just doesn’t want them to die. Either of them.

Just, maybe Jongdae’s sick of people telling him what to do and how to feel. Maybe Jongdae doesn’t need to justify anything to anyone, no matter what kind of choices he makes.

“Okay,” Kai says. “Okay, I – okay.”

“They’re going to use your people.” That much, Jongdae knows. “Make them march on the temple. People are going to die, Kai. They – the Houses –are going to sit back and let your people do all the work. Then sweep in and restore order, punish some of them so that they look legitimate on the throne. No House is going to give any kind of power to Lower Maygea. Never. Your people are going to lose, no matter which side wins.”

Jongdae steels himself, then says – “If you work with me, we can work on better conditions for Lower Maygea. Cleaner water. Better sanitation. Solar panels. Irrigation pipes, seeds for crops.”

“How can you promise me this?” Kai has a right to be suspicious. Jongdae’s been a normal person in Lower Maygea for so many months.

Luhan and Yixing have been grooming Jongdae, all these months. Jongdae’s not stupid. After Luhan realized what Jongdae was – could be – he’s treated Jongdae differently. Before, Jongdae was simply a pawn, to be used against Suho. After, Jongdae is an asset – or, at least, someone Luhan and Yixing think will be useful.

“I’m a blessed one.” Jongdae says simply.

Kai chokes back a laugh.

Jongdae snaps his fingers, and electricity gloves his hand. Luhan had said that that was tacky, and Jongdae didn’t need to – snap, like a magician - but it gets the point across.

“All these months, you were using me? Spying on Lower Maygea?”

Was he? Jongdae did tell Luhan everything that he saw. But to say that implies that Jongdae had some kind of choice in what happened to him, and what he was doing.

Jongdae did make choices. But in some ways, Jongdae didn’t, as well.

“If by spying, you mean, investigating corrupt guards and talking about the lives of people in Lower Maygea, then yes.”

The look that Kai gives him is long, hard and betrayed.

Jongdae has to catch himself before the lights shatter. Jongdae had thought it was interesting, learning about Maygea. Had liked getting lost in living. Didn’t realize that Kai would see it this way.

“I can explain,” Jongdae finds himself saying. “But not now.”

“If I said I would stop you, what would you do?”  
  
“You won’t.” Jongdae knows Kai well enough. “This is not about me, or you. It’s about your people, and Yixing. And I can only help, not hinder you, now.”

Jongdae’s right, and Kai knows it.

“What should we do?” Kai’s good at this. He tucks his emotions away, neatly. Very much like Luhan.

“I’m mapping the ship,” Jongdae says. “Give me a while. We need to fly this ship back to Maygea. I’m going to sit and not move for a while. You can get weapons. We need to clear the ship.”

\--

Guards, scattered around the ship. A crew of about ten. Three in the cockpit, seven others that Jongdae can see. Four in the bunks, three patrolling the hallways. A few hosts, locked in their rooms as well. It’s good that they’re kept away.

“I might miss some,” Jongdae warns, as he sketches the airship, marking out the guards with the coins Luhan gave him on the map.

“What are you going to do with them? Shock them?”

Jongdae’s never killed someone before. “I don’t know.” It’s not like Jongdae’s experimented with electricity on people.

“The door’s locked.”

“I can get it open.” Jongdae pores over the map. He might be able to lock the crew members in the bunks, by melting the locks.

“An important question,” Kai says. “Can you fly an airship?”

“No, can you?”

“Maybe.” Kai gazes at the map. “I’ve watched people fly one before.”

Jongdae glances up, trying to determine if Kai’s being sarcastic.

“I’m a fast learner.”

“We can threaten the captain,” Jongdae says. “There are three of them. We only need one to fly the ship, right?”

“Yes.” Kai watches Jongdae. “You’ve never been like this before.”

“I’m going to try something,” Jongdae says. He sinks back into the current, traces it to the door of the bunks. Overloaded, the system fizzles and dies, leaving the lock stuck in place. The bunk lights and ventilation fan die, as well.

He’s grinning, when he reopens his eyes.

“I wanted to make you smile more,” Kai says, with a trace of irony. “I’m glad it happened, though like this.”

“I locked the bunks.” Jongdae makes a note on his sketch. “They’ll realize – I shorted the lights, and fans too – but that means, four people out.”

“They’ll bang on the doors, and some will go running.”

“Yes.” There are lights in the hallway, but nothing else that Jongdae can short-circuit. That means they need to do the rest by hand.

“Now for our door.” If Jongdae overloads it, they’ll be locked in, like the guards.

The walls have wiring. Jongdae could shatter them.

“Stand back,” Jongdae says, dragging Kai to the far corner of the room. He grabs the blanket and flings it over both of them, wincing at the smell. It’s clear what Luhan and Jongdae were up to.

As the embarrassment in Jongdae flares, he catches it, uses it to fuel the sparks gathering in the wires.

Not too big, or it’ll catch fire and damage the ship walls. Jongdae breathes. Control.

Hymns, lilting, in the distance. The long sweep of wings.

“Are you mad? I can pick the lock,” Kai says.

“Oh,” Jongdae sweeps the blanket back off both of their heads.

“Did you do that? The music,” Kai says, as he digs through his pockets.

Jongdae’s – Kai – not Kai. Please, not Kai.

“No,” Jongdae says. “I do electricity, not music. “

“It sounded familiar,” Kai says, as he takes out a small pouch.

“Maybe someone was singing in the shower. Why didn’t you let me break the wall?”

“There are no small electrical explosions. Have you tried it before?”

Come to think of it, Jongdae hasn’t.

“Unless you say you’re invincible and you can fly, we are not trying an explosion in midair.”

The lock clicks open. Jongdae breathes. He needs to be careful around Kai. No one can realize that Kai can hear the Phoenix. If Yixing knows – if Luhan knows – they will take Kai away.

“We should surprise them, one by one, and knock them out.” Jongdae needs to avoid using his powers around Kai.

“I have limits,” Jongdae lies. “There are three of them, and two of us. We can take them.”

\--

One of the guards was the one Jongdae saw earlier, the one that touched him. He stands behind the two guards prying at the door with crowbars, speaking into a black communication device.

“Hello?” Jongdae calls, down the corridor. Kai’s inside a room, waiting for the guard to pass by.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

Muttered voices. Jongdae waits, heart in his throat. Finally, the guard, the one Jongdae hates, rounds the corner.

“Sweetheart,” he says, frowning. “What are you doing out here?”

Jongdae dangles a lockpick from his hand. “Why did you lock me in? Why are we flying?”

“We had an early takeoff,” the guard says. He motions with his hand. “Come here.”

“You’re lying,” Jongdae says. “You locked me in.”

“Where’s Kai?” The guard counters.

“He went to find people,” Jongdae says. “I took this side, and he took the other. You haven’t answered my question.”

“People don’t pay you to ask questions,” the guard remarks. “And now you’re asking too much. Go back to sleep.”

“Where are we going?”

“I said, go back to sleep,” the guard repeats, strolling down the corridor towards Jongdae. Jongdae flinches, but makes himself stand still.

“One would think,” the guard remarks, “that you were waiting, for me, sweetheart-“

He yanks the door where Kai was standing open, suddenly. Kai lunges out at him. The guard’s ready, though, and he retreats, grabbing at the black phone.

Jongdae reacts before he thinks – the phone sizzles, dies in the guard’s hand. He drops it, stunned. Kai clocks him in the jaw, and then once in the temple.

Jongdae heard music again. So did Kai, from the way he frowns.

“They’re coming,” Jongdae hisses at Kai. The sound of the guard hitting the floor was loud enough for others to hear.

Kai grabs Jongdae, pulling him back into the room as footsteps pound in the corridor. “Jin!” someone shouts.

“They should have guns,” Kai says. Jongdae’s white and angry, he could solve this all by just – but Kai can hear –

Bullets whiz through the wall. Jongdae breathes – white light leaks through the open door, as electricity crackles in the corridor.

There’s no way Kai didn’t hear that. The thump of bodies on the floor, and the unmistakable, audible lilt of the Phoenix’s wordless voice.

“Later,” Jongdae says harshly. “They’ll lock the cockpit, or land the plane or –hurry.”

\--

The bodies are burnt, and very obviously dead. Jongdae doesn’t glance at them. Not now.

The cockpit’s locked, as Jongdae expected. Kai opens it, then Jongdae darts in.

It’s a quick fight. Jongdae touches one, two of them, leaving the pilot facing them, back pressed to the panels.

“You’re flying us back to Maygea,” Jongdae tells him. His voice comes out cold and a bit funny. He touches one of them – don’t look at their faces, Jongdae – and the person screams. There’s a burn mark on his skin, when Jongdae lifts his hand.

Whispering in the background, sad.

“You don’t need your legs,” Jongdae says. Matter-of-fact.

Jongdae’s not as good as Luhan when it comes to making people do what he wants them to do. But Jongdae can give it a good shot, all the same.

How can Luhan do it? Luhan looks mad, speaks mad, acts mad. But it takes so much control to keep everything in check. Jongdae feels like giving up and falling back into the music – letting electricity bubble from his skin, eating the air and everyone around him. For Luhan, who sinks into people’s mind – who has to be others, and withstand the Phoenix at the same time – how can he be out of control?

Jongdae thinks he understands, at last. Why Luhan swings between two extremes. Luhan has to be more reckless, wilder than anyone or anything, even the Phoenix, to avoid losing himself. The rest of the time, he wants to be emotionless; sees it as a respite.

Underlying Luhan, Jongdae finally sees, is iron-cold, unbreakable control.

The Phoenix sings, but Jongdae has a focus, that keeps him sane. Electricity lifts the ends of Jongdae’s hair; lights the end of Jongdae’s fingertips. Jongdae thinks he can handle it, even without Luhan.

Is this Jongdae? Maybe, maybe not. But people have their own purpose in life, and even if Jongdae’s is not the best for most people, it’s still his own.

Jongdae’s not stupid. The moment the airship goes off course, he gives the pilot one, two chances, then he ruins the pilot’s feet. His toes.

It feels like everything is simple. Jongdae knows what he wants and how to get it.

“Stop it,” Kai says. “I can fly the ship.”

“Okay,” Jongdae says.

The pilot lunges for the control, but electricity’s as fast as thought. Jongdae has the pilot unconscious before his fingers even touch the lever.

“He’s not dead,” Jongdae says, hauling the pilot out of the seat. Jongdae still avoids Kai’s eyes, though.

\--

They land just outside the city gates. Kai does a decent job of it.

There are people waiting – people, some angry, some happy, some relieved.

“Kai,” someone says, pushing his way through the crowd- “they’re marching on the temple-“

“The reeds are here,” Kai says brusquely, “tell them to  _stop-_ “

As people swarm into the ship, Jongdae slips out into the crowd, unnoticed.

\--

There are people surrounding the temple. People from Lower Maygea. They’re shouting and demanding for Yixing to come out, though they haven’t attacked the temple yet.

Jongdae’s looking for the people in control. He looks around for watchers. High vantage points, liveried soldiers, perhaps, waiting to come in and subdue the rebels.

Kai gallops through the crowd, on a horse. The people from Lower Maygea trust him more than Jongdae knew – the crowd parts for him, turns to face him.

“Go home,” Kai shouts – “go  _home_  –“

Jongdae had told him, “you should reach them before me, Kai” – and Kai had understood the implicit threat.

“This,” Kai shouts- someone passed him a microphone – Jongdae scans the buildings, Kai’s an open target –

Kai collapses from the horse, stunned surprise on his face; spray of blood red, bright under the afternoon sun.

Jongdae can hear a person, crying out in rage. The shimmer of color on wings, the flexing of a muscular throat. Impotent anger.

It feels like someone inside Jongdae is waking up, crawling on hands and feet; reaching for something to grab, stand up – electricity’s hot and it chokes. It feels like someone new, stretching within Jongdae’s skin – someone new and someone familiar, Luhan-

**12\. Spirals**

 

When Yixing had explained the mark on the back of Jongdae’s neck to him, he had called it a failsafe. Like a lifering, he said. For people to be tied to one another – so even if they were swept out to sea, they wouldn’t die alone. For those who could get lost in the Phoenix, such marks tied them to someone else, grounding both of them.

 

When either Jongdae or Luhan lost control, and the music got too loud, the connection between them, granted by the mark, would open. Jongdae should fear that. He does, but he’s also curious. How does it feel, to finally hand over responsibility for yourself, at last? Like death, the mark’s fascinating.

 

“Why isn’t Luhan tied to you?”

 

“I’m beyond hope,” Yixing says, smile dimpled.

 --

After Kai gets shot, and the rage of the Phoenix overtakes Jongdae, Jongdae gets to taste this feeling of surrender.  

He is Luhan, as well, for that short period of time. Luhan’s furious and scared and still perfectly logical. He’s perched on a ledge, wind whipping around in the long drop before him. Inside, the shouts of guards resound. The Houses have brought as many people as they could to Nabreus.

\--

Luhan fades away. So does the Phoenix. Jongdae’s left blinking, holding on to the alley wall. The crowd’s dissolving into a mob before his eyes.

A man with a short crew-cut, taller than Jongdae by at least a head, holds Jongdae’s shoulder.

“Are you Jongdae?” 

“Yes?”

“That’s good,” the man sighs. “Yixing showed me your photo, but I’m bad with faces. I’m going to turn time back, so – I think the shooter’s up in that building, judging by the way the bullet hit – the second level from the top – just flood that with electricity, will you?”

Jongdae’s standing in the alley, again, at the fringe of the crowd. Like a tape rewound, Kai’s reaching for the microphone; without thinking, with intent, Jongdae does as Tao says. White light leaks briefly from the windows, and Jongdae thinks he can hear a scream. It’s okay; the crowd’s noise covers it. Kai jerks his head in Jongdae’s direction.

Jongdae can’t pretend he doesn’t know  - Kai’s a blessed one, as well.

“Oh, good,” the man sighs, appearing suddenly at Jongdae’s elbow. “I made it, almost thought I couldn’t, the number of times I had to turn back time – I took the best ship they had, but it was so  _slow,_ and I left everyone else behind to do the deal, and they’re not going to get the best we can get out of that trade – still, we made it, that was  _pretty,_ Jongdae!”

Was it? “We should check on Yixing,” Jongdae says. Tao sighs, says, “you’re too  _serious_ , all of you, like we have a foot in our graves already.”

“If Luhan comes back and Yixing has even a scratch on him…” Jongdae trails off meaningfully. Tao scowls, shoving his hands in his long pants. Tao dresses like he’s from Desun; instead of robes, he has on a sturdy linen shirt and smooth cotton pants, tailored to accentuate the long lines of his body. The single diamond stud glinting in his left ear looks like it costs more than the alley than he’s standing in.

“I was negotiating trade with Desun,” Tao says, “because the rest of you won’t even  _talk_ to them, I swear, Sehun and I are the only two courtiers who talk, the rest of you just go Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix all day long and kneel naked in baths  _and_ fall sick after that.”

There’s an unfamiliar sound. It takes Jongdae a while before he realizes that he’s laughing. Small, coughing laughs, but still laughs.

“At least you like my humor,” Tao says, appeased. He scans the crowd. “We should go in by the back.”

\--

“Yixing!” Tao pushes the door open. Yixing has wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He’s sketching, charcoal sticks carpeting the table he’s using.

It’s Kai that Yixing’s drawing. From the window that Yixing sits at, they can see the plaza where Kai still is. People are listening. The mood is shifting.

“Wait,” Tao says sceptically. “I was doing all I could to keep you safe, even giving that brat Sehun a  _discount_ on a trade deal, and you’re drawing some guy from Lower Maygea?”

Jongdae knows better. Yixing saw Kai. Yixing’s making sure he doesn’t forget Kai.

“Even if it was not me,” Yixing says, “someone else would find out. Or it would emerge, one day, and he would hurt people around him.”

Yixing’s a ruler through and through. Enough warmth to hide the cold, sharp edges any ruler needs.

“I want to make a deal,” Jongdae says, and Yixing goes – “You don’t have anything left to give me, Jongdae.”

“I can leave.” Jongdae could. “I can leave and none of you can stop me.”

“You can’t trade something that is not yours.” Yixing rubs the charcoal edges with his finger. “This is Kai’s decision, not yours. How would he feel, when he knows that you tried to protect him by hiding him away?”

“He doesn’t have to know.”

“Too serious, I said,” Tao says breezily, butting in. “It’s not like we have a mob outside, it’s not like I had to come back from a future where Yixing almost died – priorities.”

With an effort, Jongdae says – “it’s the three Houses. Duo, Cang and Mi. They arranged for the ships to go missing. They want Yixing dead.”

“Nothing new,” Yixing sighs.

“Nothing new since Xiumin left,” Tao corrects. He flops onto the floor, stretching with a sigh. “Yixing, we need him back.”

Jongdae’s never met Xiumin. “Where is he?”

“The border.” Tao purses his lips, eyes closed. He looks really tired. “It’s a symbolic gesture of how Desun and Maygea are actually one and people shouldn’t have to choose between them. Xiumin’s so pretentious.”

“He goes by Minseok, now,” Yixing says, still focused on his painting.

Minseok, whom Jongdae stayed with. Jongdae thinks. There was Minseok’s accent, polished Capitol, when he spoke to Kris – Luhan saying, “What are your deepest secrets,  _Minseok”_

“Kai said he worked for a noble who gave him a hawk.”

“Minseok loved hawks,” Yixing says.

This is – everything tied up together. Like an ouroboros, snake eating its own tail.

“They stranded Luhan in Nabreus,” Jongdae says. “They might-“

Tao laughs. “Good luck to them.” 

“If they attack in a mob, Luhan can’t stop them.”

“You saw the memories, Jongdae.” Yixing colors Kai’s eyebrow in with careful strokes.  “Luhan was awakened when he was thirteen. People only knew about his powers when he was sixteen. He hid them for three years, even while using them to keep both of us safe. Luhan will be back soon. If something happens –“ Yixing doesn’t look very happy - “You’ll know.”

\--

Yixing’s right. Jongdae knows, when Luhan has lost control.

Earlier, when Jongdae watched Kai die, Jongdae had tasted the possibility of – something bigger opening for him, linking him in a fleeting moment to Luhan.

 

It comes again, crippling Jongdae. Pressed against the floor, he tries hard to breathe. Luhan's never lost control before – that’s what Yixing says - but he has now.  He's riding too many minds; being too many people at once. Jongdae's with him, flooded and drowned. They must have cornered Luhan – Luhan had to fight his way out, taking control of as many minds as he could – but even Luhan has limits. Touch too many minds, and he loses himself.

Luhan. Jongdae holds on to that word. It’s a  _name._ It’s the name of a person that has etched himself on Jongdae; altered him. It’s a word but it’s not just a word, it’s memories, leaking, bleeding emotions, emotions that seep into Jongdae. Emotions, unwanted, poignant, that make the best indicator of how much Luhan is a part of him, already.

 

There are more memories than Jongdae remembers. One unexpected one is Luhan, shirtless, as he straddled Jongdae under the afternoon sun. How the arc of his neck, faintly tanned, looked.

Jongdae also remembers Luhan sitting on him, in moonlight, smiling as he hurt Jongdae. Luhan hurt Jongdae, many times. Jongdae had known. He had wanted to be hurt. But that didn’t make what Luhan did right, either.

Luhan, coming to the safehouse late one night. He’d slept on Jongdae’s bed, as Jongdae had struggled to get through a convoluted Hunt agreement. Jongdae would have woken Luhan up, but he had not, that night. He’d gone through the document himself, dosing himself on coffee and cold water. Luhan’s surprised face the next morning was worth the pounding headache Jongdae had to deal with.

It’s a mixture of anger and also attachment, tied so tightly the fraying strings make a single braid, now.

There's too much history knotted up between them. 

The weight of Luhan sets into Jongdae. Jongdae's both himself and Luhan - Luhan, mute and still reeling, from being too many people at once. Luhan is also Jongdae - the faint sliver of sane consciousness, the halo of electricity oozing from Luhan's skin, catching on his robes, burning them away. 

Luhan drags himself up and keeps moving, through the pain. People cringe away from him, from the white-blue current that snaps and sizzles, like laughter, around him. Luhan remembers times like this – pulling his heavy, stupid body towards Yixing in the cell, pain a dull ache down his spine. Crawling off the bed in the morning, before Yixing's uncle woke up - another day of freedom bought for Yixing. Moving, constant movement, through so much, over so many years. It gets easier to hurt others, if you move fast and don't stay too long in a single place. Jongdae can understand that. 

How much does Jongdae really know about Luhan? How much does Jongdae want to know about Luhan?  

 

If he’s honest with himself, Jongdae hasn’t tried to get closer. Neither has Luhan. They have something that seems enough, but it’s – Jongdae’s just looking for sharp edges to cut himself on. Blunt sides against which he can knock himself out. Luhan’s interested in what Jongdae can do for Yixing.

Luhan and Jongdae interact like spirals. It feels like Jongdae knows Luhan, or Luhan knows Jongdae, but they're going in circles, rising and falling but never out of line. 

Jongdae's been hiding from so many things for so long. What Jongdae thought was attachment to each other is attachment; but it's attachment built on circular thoughts, a mutual agreement not to ask the questions that really matter.

In short, it’s a mutual decision not to get too much closer together. Not close enough to know, but close enough, to be a maybe - a no masqeurading as enough. 

It's not just about Luhan. Jongdae hasn't said - I'm tired, I’m sad, I’m cold, I’m scared, I’m weak, I hurt - he just went about living and waited for time to pass. He’s had enough of relying on people and losing them.

If I don't come close enough, can you keep me by your side? 

Like a spiral with no beginning or end. That's Jongdae and Luhan - for all the apparent movement, constant stasis. 

\--

It takes a while. Luhan manages to shake off his pursuers in Lower Nabreus. Jongdae takes over Luhan’s body, keeping a lookout, as Luhan sleeps in Jongdae’s.

At night, they return to the airfield. Luhan makes it to an airship, eventually.

It gets easier, once the airship takes off. The voices lessen, quiet, the higher the airship rises. Jongdae curls up and breathes, Luhan's pain his as well. 

In the silence, there's only Jongdae and Luhan left. 

"Is Yixing safe?"

 

"Tao's with him." 

 

Jongdae remembers the waiting - the extended period of waiting, Tao coming closer, the world reversing. Jongdae flooding the floor of the building with electricity - the brief moment of contact with people, that surging sense of rage. 

 

"What happened?"

 

The plane lifting; Kai standing too close to Jongdae. Jongdae cool and uncaring, the fear that Kai could hear the Phoenix - Jongdae killing people. Jongdae winces. He doesn't know how to feel about it. 

 

"You did well," Luhan says. He's considering the four people left trapped in the bunks - thinking of interrogation, darkly. 

 

"I killed people." Jongdae repeats. "I'm not - Luhan. I'm not doing this again." Even as he says it, he knows - knows that the Phoenix is not something he can leave behind. 

 

"You can get used to it."

 

"You and me, we're different." Jongdae says this without a trace of irony. They are. 

 

"I killed when I was fourteen," Luhan says, thinking. It was one of the courtiers, who had believed that Yixing should still be killed. It had taken a lot of planning - and sheer luck - but Luhan had managed to get a fellow courtier, also anti-Yixing, to kill him. The resulting fallout between the Houses had taken the heat of Luhan and Yixing. Luhan still remembers this with cold pride. 

 

"What's funny," Luhan asks. He's curled up in a corner of the airship, watching the ground below through half-closed eyes. The flight path has been already set. 

 

"We're bonding over kills," Jongdae says. Like Luhan, he's curled on his side. 

 

"We're different." Luhan says. They are. "You do well with people." 

 

Luhan's charming when he wants to be. But Jongdae can see what he's thinking. Luhan has the networks, the spies, the black trade. Jongdae has the city informers, Lower Maygea, people who do honest business. They are different. Like the open hand and the closed palm; one ready to hold, one ready to strike. 

 

It's strange. They're thinking about each other like equals. Luhan's not grooming a successor, he's preparing Jongdae to take up a role he can't. A role Jongdae is startled to realize that he can be good at, if he wants to be. 

 

But Luhan is doing this all for Yixing. Jongdae's only been around Yixing for a few months. Jongdae could do it, but he might not want to. 

 

Jongdae's not doing it for Luhan either. It's funny, but the idea of choice opens up the possibility of saying no - and Jongdae has pretty much no idea what to do with it. Is startled, and a bit lost, to realize that he can choose. Is even more puzzled, when he realizes that he has interests of his own. 

 

Maygea is a city that could be run better than it currently is. Kai's right - politics and Hunts draw attention away from governing the country. Infrastructure - better trade regulation and taxing, better safety along trade routes, better living conditions for people in Lower Maygea. 

 

Luhan's not interested in that - he cares only about the bare minimum to prevent riots from breaking out in Maygea. But Jongdae is.

 

“Why?” Jongdae asks aloud. “Why the Hunts, and why the neglect of Maygea? Yixing’s a better ruler than that.”

 

“Yixing can hear the Phoenix well.” Luhan watches the fields, the mountains pass below. It’s another three hours, at least, before the aircraft will reach Maygea. “She won’t stop talking to him.”

It still doesn’t make sense. Yixing doesn’t seem like a power-hungry ruler to Jongdae. He’s simply obsessed with the Hunts, and the Phoenix, but it’s not about power, the way so many people think it is.

 

Luhan’s thinking about Yixing, with reserved, faint warmth. Yixing took care of Luhan, when Luhan was younger. Luhan had been happy and smiling, and Yixing was growing up with a developing, promising maturity. Then Yixing’s and Luhan’s parents had been killed, and Luhan had had to change, for both of them to survive.

 

“I only need Yixing,” Luhan says. It’s an odd sort of peace that he has.

 

Jongdae needs a lot of people. Luhan, Yixing, Kai. Suho, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, to be happy without him.

 

“We are different,” Jongdae murmurs. The rocking of the airship is soothing.

 

\--

 

When the airship is near -  Tao finds Jongdae, collapsed on the floor, and calls Yixing – Tao and Jongdae wait outside the city gates, near where Kai landed the first airship. It’s not safe for Yixing to leave the temple.

Tao helps Jongdae up the gangway, to Luhan. He’s sitting, cross-legged, face paper-white.

Their hands touch, and the music dies. Jongdae’s left alone in his skin, staring at Luhan.

This is a touch that began with hope, and ended in regret. All they have left is a connection that they might never get back again. People can’t live their lives like that, and Luhan and Jongdae won’t.

Both of them would rather not have it, than have it and lose it.

That’s what Jongdae thinks.

Jongdae pulls Luhan to him, burying his face in Luhan’s hair. Luhan pats his back weakly, while Tao makes gagging noises in the background.

Not close enough, but Jongdae still wants to try.

 

**13\. The Uncanny**

 

“Minseok,” Jongdae says – “No, Xiumin.” Even if Jongdae knew that Minseok was Xiumin, what difference would that have made?

“Why are you still here?” Kris asks bluntly, entering the room behind Xiumin. He’s still in armor. They must have come from the inn together.

Xiumin pats Jongdae down, businesslike. Jongdae’s bewildered, until he catches the worry in Xiumin’s eyes. He’s checking for injuries.

“Just tired,” Jongdae explains. His spine and ass still hurt, but it’s bearable. “Did you get that cow?”

Xiumin hugs Jongdae, so tight he hisses in pain. “You didn’t come back,” Xiumin says, beside his ear.

Jongdae didn’t. He’d stayed, because Yixing had made him sign his life away. Uncomfortable, Jongdae tries to pull away, but Xiumin holds him tight.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,” he says. Jongdae doesn’t like to think about that – about how Xiumin could have stopped Luhan, but chose not to.

“Stop suffocating him,” Tao scolds, yanking Xiumin away.

Jongdae has to take deep, steadying breaths. He steps away from Xiumin, confused. That had been a good section in his memories, but it’s not – as good, now.

“Don’t blame him.” It’s Yixing, seated beside the window. Kai’s next to him, tracing the drawing that Yixing did.

“The agreement was, if he interfered, he would have to come back.”

“Did you do it on purpose?” Jongdae asks Luhan quietly. Luhan’s eyes flicker to him, then to Xiumin. He knows exactly what Jongdae is asking. That night, in front of Xiumin.

“Yes.” Luhan says it clearly, without regret or shame.

The lights tinkle, raining glass. Jongdae presses his hands to his face.

“I hear it again,” Kai says, and Jongdae goes, “no, you don’t!” Then – “you don’t. Can’t you just say you don’t?”

“What do you know?” Kai presses.

Luhan, touching Jongdae on his elbow. Dousing the electricity that Jongdae wants to corral and build. It makes Jongdae even angrier.

“You’re a blessed one, Kai,” Yixing says. “Like us.”

Kris snorts in disbelief. Tao punches his shoulder.

Kai’s silent, obviously thinking.

“I can show you how to use it,” Yixing promises, “if you’ll run Lower Maygea for us. Food, water, shelter. Anything you want, for them.”

It’s not a deal anyone expected. Kai’s brows draw together in confusion.

“I don’t need anything from you,” Yixing explains. “Only for you to keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

Luhan’s quiet, but Jongdae can see how puzzled he is, as well. Yixing has always operated on a different track from the rest of them, even Luhan.

“What are you up to?” Jongdae asks bluntly. “What are you up to, Yixing?”

“Taking care of Maygea,” Yixing says, glancing at Xiumin. “Like I was told I should do.”

“You never listened.” Xiumin used to look cheery and happy to Jongdae, but without a smile, he’s businesslike and sharp. Even in the coarse Desun clothes he wears. “You’re not going to start now.”

“I didn’t have Kai, and Jongdae, back then. I do now.”

“I want Jongdae to leave all of this. That’s my condition, for coming back.”

“I’m standing here, why don’t you  _talk to me._ ” Jongdae sidesteps Luhan. Everyone wants to protect Jongdae in their own way, like how Baekhyun had not told him about Suho and Kyungsoo – denied it, even – and Suho had tried to get Jongdae to go back to Desun with them.

 

If they don’t stick around for Jongdae, they don’t get to have a say in his life.

“Don’t touch me,” Jongdae says, stepping backwards, away from Xiumin. “You don’t owe me anything, and I don’t owe you anything. I’m not going to be your reason for staying.”

“Your hair is standing on end, and your clothes are starting to burn,” Tao announces. “Get a grip.  All of you.”

“Why are you still here?” Xiumin asks, and Kris mutters – “I asked that just now –“

“Can’t I make my own choices?” It’s not like Jongdae to snap. Kai’s watching, both eyebrows raised. He’s never seen Jongdae angry before.

“This is not something you can walk away from,” Jongdae tells Kai. “You shouldn’t agree.”

“You stayed.” Kai points out.

“I did.” Jongdae looks at Luhan, remembers holding him earlier and hoping that things would be different. He has trouble differentiating the Luhan in front of him and the Luhan earlier – the one Jongdae first met. The one that stole Jongdae's memories. The one that fucked Jongdae's mouth in front of his friend, while Jongdae was half-asleep. The one that shook out his secret across the floor, that made him tell Suho that he loved him. That made him beg Suho for love. The one that made Jongdae leave his homeland and friends and everything he has known - a departure that is permanent, how can Jongdae go back - to be a tool. A killer. A hawk, set loose and expected to return.

Luhan’s still and quiet, watching Jongdae with an intensity that makes him turn away. Jongdae doesn’t know why he expected anything different; doesn’t know why he expected anything.

He leaves the room hastily. No one stops him.

\--

“Hey.” Kai finds Jongdae in the kitchen. Jongdae’s making buns for himself, using up as much of the ingredients of Yixing’s larder as he can. Jongdae hesitates before pulling out a slab of chicken meat for Kai.

“Thanks.” Kai washes his hands before joining Jongdae at the counter. It’s familiar. Buns are cheap and easy to make. Kai and Jongdae would pool their money, save up over a few weeks, before they would buy ingredients for buns and noodles. For a few days, they would set up a small stall selling buns and noodles. They had to get up before the crack of dawn, but at least the nights ended early.

“You said you’d explain,” Kai says, once the buns are in the oven. Jongdae washes his hands slowly, while Kai makes tea.

Jongdae doesn’t know when he got so twisted up and bitter.

“I met Luhan over the border,” he says. “He found out that I was Suho’s manservant. Went through my memories.”

Kai rubs Jongdae’s neck cautiously. Jongdae leans into his touch. “I worked at Minseok’s inn for a while. Luhan came back again, with Kris.”

The buns. Jongdae’s appetite vanishes. He’d made some for Luhan, wishing that Luhan would come back.

“He –“ Jongdae starts, then shakes his head. “He, used me against Minseok. And Suho.”

It’s sparse, but Jongdae – this is the most he can say about it. It’s hard. Kai doesn’t press. His hand falls to Jongdae’s shoulder, carefully pulling him in. Kai knows how sensitive Jongdae is about touch.

Jongdae breathes in the smell of Kai – hot, like desert sand. Lifting his head, he makes himself go on.

“During that, he found out that I was – that I had powers. I-“

This is not the person Jongdae wants to be. Hiding from memories, cautious, unhappy. “So he found me, and brought me back to Maygea.” Jongdae makes his voice brighter, happier. “It’s a nice country. This is a nice city. I’m glad I’m here.”

“What were you doing here?”

“Odd jobs. Seeing the city. I think they were training me.”

“Training you for?”

Jongdae shrugs. “Who knows. I think they were looking out for what I could do, as well. Yixing still hasn’t said.”

“If Yixing wants you to kill,” Kai says, “what will you do?”

“I’m good at it. You saw that. But I don’t want it, I think. I don’t know.”

Kai catches Jongdae’s hand, holds it. “Don’t change.”

“You’re going to work with Yixing.”

“I won’t change, either,” Kai promises. “Jongdae, come and help me.”

“I don’t know much about Maygea. I’ve only been here for a few months. I don’t know much about economy, about trade, about food, about gem mines.” Jongdae laughs softly at himself. How could Jongdae have thought, in the airship, that he could have helped Yixing to govern Maygea?

“You’re smart and kind.” Kai’s grip on Jongdae’s hand is tight. “You’re always kind. Always. And you don’t have an agenda. People like you.”

“There are so many other courtiers who can do what I do. You’re better off with them, Kai.”

“Jongdae- Jongdae. I’m asking you for help. Give me what you can. We said, remember? We said that Maygea could be run better than this. I want to try. I want you there helping me.”

Jongdae says "I'll think about it," and what he really means is - "I can't feel anything."

\--

Maygea’s hot, like a dream that doesn’t end.

They purge Maygea of Duo, Cang and Mi, those few months.

Xiumin takes barely a week to wrest Mi back. The current leaders of Mi have already left Maygea, in order to avoid retaliation. He simply walks into the House and demands control. There are enough who remember him, enough that Mi peacefully surrenders to Xiumin after three days of internal consultation.

Duo and Cang take much longer. Luhan draws on his immense spy network, this time. Jongdae follows him to back-alley bars, gambling dens, prostitution houses, strange mercenaries – people Luhan deals with deftly.

They get even more of a reputation. Luhan’s still Luhan – impossible to lie to – but there are stories, also, of a thin, slightly haggard youth with a warm smile. Who tempers Luhan, occasionally – but who’s quick, and even more lethal than Luhan, when he lashes out.

Jongdae sleeps during the day and wakes at night.

It’s Luhan that stops him, eventually.

“It’s not for you,” he says, from the doorway.

Jongdae’s lying awake in his darkened room. He seems to have not been sleeping properly lately. An ache has taken up residence in his back, muscles tensing painfully whenever he moves. Even unmoving, like this, the ache lurks at the corners of his consciousness.

“Go with Kai,” Luhan says. “I’ll tell Yixing.”

Jongdae wants to be furious, but there’s nothing inside of him. “I want to finish this,” he says. They’ve been dismantling Duo and Cang from the inside out, these past months. Duo’s stranglehold over the wheat trade is almost broken, and Cang’s niece is eyeing the seat her uncle has left unoccupied in his hasty flight away from Maygea. Tomorrow, they finally hunt down Duo’s errant leader.

Luhan steps into the room. He moves to sit beside Jongdae, cross-legged, at the foot of Jongdae’s bed. Leaning against the wall, he closes his eyes.

What are they doing? Luhan’s still close to Jongdae; closer, even. Close, through these few months, listening and sharing and making decisions with Jongdae like an equal.

But Jongdae can’t forget the past. He used to be happy, last time – not ecstatic, but quietly content, with his new life in Maygea. Willing to take whatever Luhan could give. It was enough, he told himself.

Now, with Xiumin and Kris here, the past can’t be so easily separated from Jongdae’s present. Luhan hurt Jongdae, in so many ways. Jongdae wants to say – you hurt me, I remember you hurting me – the kind of hurt that matters because it’s why Jongdae is the way he is today. Needing people, but incapable of getting too close. Like a compass needle, quivering, spun to point in the direction he should take to please someone.

Still, Jongdae falls asleep with Luhan next to him.

\--

Luhan’s right. That’s what Jongdae thinks, as he stands over Duo’s leader.

He wants anything but this emptiness. Satisfaction, maybe, or self-hatred. Something.

Nothing to distinguish this moment from the one before it, or the one after. Time passing, and Jongdae losing the ability to count it.

He sees the Phoenix. About the size of a full-grown warhorse, the bird balances precariously on Duo’s leader. It scratches at the corpse repeatedly, but its claws don’t even leave a mark.

It has dark, liquid eyes, and feathers that move like a flowing stream of fire. Before Jongdae’s eyes, it spreads its wings and takes to the sky, carolling restlessly.

Luhan kneels before the corpse. He’s pulling something from it, something red and black at once. It’s a tiny flame, that he closes into a glass box.

“This is what we do on Hunts,” Luhan says. “If you don’t remove these from the marks, they wake up again, after a while.”

Back in Maygea, Luhan shows him a room in the temple, built under the pool. There are rows and rows of flames, flickering in their cases.

“We collect these,” he explains. “That’s why you need blessed ones on a Hunt. Normal people can’t remove these from the monsters.”

“Luhan,” Jongdae confesses, “you were right.”

Luhan pauses mid-explanation.

“I'll go help Kai.”

Luhan doesn’t even try to change Jongdae’s mind.

\--

They transfer Jongdae to Kai. Xiumin’s mentoring Kai now. He takes in Jongdae as well.

 Jongdae’s learning, but it seems strange. Like it’s hard to focus on anything around him. Like Jongdae’s stuck underwater.

It feels like – like Jongdae’s been moving, constantly moving, for so long, when he stops it’s hard to even take a step forward again.

“Jongdae,” Tao says, one day. Kai, Tao, Jongdae and Xiumin have formed an unlikely friendship. Jongdae’s comfortable and even snarky around them sometimes, like how he used to be. “I’m going out of Maygea to visit Sehun. Go with me.”

Jongdae and Luhan still share the same safehouse. Luhan still sleeps next to Jongdae – more so, now. Jongdae still cooks for Luhan, if Luhan stocks the larder. They’re getting to know each other all over again – cautiously, slowly. Painfully. Both of them aren’t used to sharing.

Jongdae leaves that night with Tao, without telling Luhan. He can’t say why he does so – maybe because he feels like he needs to say something when leaving, and he doesn’t know what to say.

Through the journey, Jongdae feels haunted. Airships remind Jongdae of the first time he killed. They remind him, also, of Kai, and Luhan. Of blindly turning to Luhan, trusting Luhan to hurt him. They say time makes things clear; what if they keep knotting relationships, as fast as time can unknot them?

They even stop in Nabreus. The town’s a garrison town, made for Phalanx soldiers. It’s surrounded by the Deadlands, a marsh reportedly populated by dangerous monsters. Tao tells Jongdae about Nabreus. For the first time in a few months, something catches Jongdae’s attention.

“This was where she began Scarlet’s Walk.” Tao rights his sunglasses with a finger. They’re standing on the walls of the city, looking out at the marshland. “Left her husband and kids, when they reached Nabreus.”

“Tao,” Jongdae says, “I’m staying here. I’m not going back.”

“Funny,” Tao says. “Phoenix, it’s cold.” Then, “why?”

Tao doesn’t see it, apparently. Jongdae doesn’t even know if he’s seeing it correctly. There’s someone walking in the distance, black hair flowing.

Either way, Jongdae wants to be alone. Maybe answers will come to him, then.

“I feel like it,” Jongdae answers honestly. 

 

**15\. Hawk**

 

_if you love yourself, let go_

_if, later, it_

_settles, unasked, on your lifted arm_

_mantling barred wings,_

_eyes like deep water_

_let go. this is the_

_right day to drown._

 

\--

Even before the Phoenix, there were ruins. Old ruins, huge stone columns, marbled walls, massive pillars chiselled out of obsidian. Time took its toll; the grasslands took these ruins into themselves, carpeting them with undergrowth. Coupled with the Nabreus climate, which was inclined to rain, pools of water formed, lying silent and mute among the ruins.

After the Phoenix, nothing except plants live in the Deadlands. Monsters used to abound, until they died out. Humans don’t like to stay there. They complain of strange noises, of old monsters that still lurk. Most of all, they speak of seeing fire.

\--

Jongdae goes into the Deadlands alone, just after sundown. He likes the dark.

The grasslands, and ruins, slumber.

In the dusk, the lights that people talk about start appearing. Rows and rows of flames, flickering orange, red, dark amber – they flicker and die and reappear.

There’s a rising, unreasonable excitement building in Jongdae, as he treks through the ruins. It rises off the edge of an anxiety deep and intense, adrenaline sparking in the face of the unknown. Jongdae walks and is acutely, consciously alive, aware of the cool breeze that smells like water and stone. A tremble in his body forms, shivering like a rabbit before a predator.

Jongdae climbs a heap of rubble carefully, avoiding the plants. At the top, his breath catches.

The Deadlands stretch further than he can see, into the distance. Glimmering pools of water, catching the reflected lights from the flames, make a vast ocean before him. The wind blows – gusts – and the water moves, the grass moves, all rippling towards Jongdae. The colors shade in gradients, refracted  and broken by water and wind.

All the fear, all the anxiety, all the waiting collapses into this instant, now, as Jongdae catches sight of the Deadlands. He senses a quiet that makes him fall silent and wordless, thoughtless, before the endless expanse of the field before him. A longing that yearns, burns in those flames lit on water.

Jongdae’s alive. He’s aware of how alive he is. How alone, but this is not loneliness – this is solitude, born out of a sadness that is peaceful and kind. A sadness, that Jongdae sees now, he does not have to be afraid of. It will come and it will change him, but he is still safe. He still has this – himself, and the ability to feel. He still has his solitude, and in it, a childlike simplicity, the capacity to hold wonder for the world around him.

There is still the sky, the sea, and people. People Jongdae cares for.

And the Phoenix, of course. Jongdae thinks he can hear her voice, in the wind.

\--

Jongdae has a bag with a thick cloak, an extra set of clothes, food and water. He packs and leaves for the Deadlands. It’s not an experience that will change his life – rather, this is space. Space for Jongdae to sit and be quiet and thoughtless, wordless for days.

Freedom is a word Jongdae has often heard, from the temples. The Phoenix wants freedom. Jongdae thought freedom was an active word – the freedom to do what you want. He sees now that it’s a state of being.

Space, the space to be. To be self-sufficient – to carry all you have on your back, to want nothing more than to be here, under the crisp, soft sky and ankle – deep, barefoot, in a pool of water. To be a complete person by yourself – finally talking to yourself, seeing your sadness and happiness and listening to your own stories as though they were someone else’s.

We each carry our own world with us, the Phoenix wrote. Jongdae thinks he understands.

\--

He finds the Phoenix on a plateau. Marble gullies, running parallel to one another, scythe the length of the plateau. Right in the centre is a canal cut wide into it, laid with veined, white marble. It’s like the bath at the temple. Flat steps that run the sides of the canal lead down into it.

There’s no water, but there is the Phoenix. Kneeling, she’s searching among the rubble for something. Her rough black hair tumbles over bare skin. As Jongdae draws closer, she stills. Looks up at Jongdae, sad.

Jongdae draws back as she reaches for him. This must be how she appears to Yixing.

She huffs, returning to her search.

“What are you looking for?” Jongdae asks. She ignores him, shifting the debris with her bare hands. Suddenly, she stiffens, head swivelling.

Something, a person-shaped mass, bolts away in the distance. A red bird swoops after it.

The Phoenix is running, running. Chasing.

Jongdae follows, of course. They run in and out of the ruins, until the Phoenix is weeping and exhausted. She disappears, halfway. Jongdae can’t find her.

\--

“I’m, uh.” The innkeeper scratches the back of his head, embarrassed. “I could give you a different room. Uh. Someone insisted on your room. Didn’t even let us move your stuff out. Guy’s not even here often, but he’s got a hell of a lock on the door. Even the windows.”

The first person Jongdae thinks of is Baekhyun. But Jongdae hasn’t seen Baekhyun in ages. Tao, maybe, insisting that Jongdae doesn’t leave.

It’s Luhan that Jongdae sees, through the open window. Even in the cool night, he has a thick blanket lumped over him.

Jongdae hasn’t seen him in weeks. Hair tousled, face pale, Luhan looks tired. There are hollows in his cheek, and his hands clutch at the blankets, clenched even in sleep.

Jongdae breaks into tears. This is memory and desire, barrelling into Jongdae with the speed and heft of a freight train. According to the innkeeper, Luhan has been coming back here every few weeks, to sleep on Jongdae’s bed.

They shared a bed, sometimes, back in Maygea. Jongdae remembers Luhan’s face close to Jongdae’s, lashes long and settled on his cheeks. Jongdae would watch Luhan, attention caught and snagged on the inhales and exhales of Luhan’s breath.

Jongdae misses that. Suddenly. Furiously.

Luhan’s eyelashes flicker. He’s a light sleeper. Jongdae rubs the back of his hand over his eyes, but it’s too late.

“Why are you standing outside of the window crying?” Luhan’s voice is hoarse and a bit confused.

“You locked the door,” Jongdae says defensively. He pulls himself over the windowsill.

“Hey, hey, hey – shoes off the bed. Off.” Jongdae has to leave his boots outside, on the window ledge, before Luhan lets him in.

“You smell,” Luhan says, dissatisfied. He’s still holding Jongdae in a death-grip anyway, Jongdae’s back pressed to Luhan’s chest. Jongdae snorts and rubs his hair against Luhan’s nose and mouth. Luhan splutters, but doesn’t let go. Jongdae hides a smile in Luhan’s soft and white sleeping robe, leaving a dirty streak along it.

“I’m flying in a few hours,” Luhan says, after a while. Jongdae’s almost fallen asleep, if not for the occasional sniffle.

“I’m not going back yet.”

“I’ll be back here in three nights.”

“I’ll check my schedule.” Jongdae yawns.

“Can you bathe before that?”

They don’t make promises, but they’ll meet again. Jongdae likes that.

\--

Jongdae hikes, often, out to the Deadlands. Luhan comes and leaves Nabreus. Sometimes Jongdae’s jostled awake by Luhan, sometimes Jongdae has to fight his way under the blanket.

It’s easier, this way. Jongdae’s lighter and freer here. Happier with himself, and able to look at Luhan with clearer eyes. It’s still need, but it’s not only blind need.

\--

The way Luhan touches Jongdae is new. Fresh. Uncertain. The raw certainty they had previously is now awkwardness made large.

“That’s-“ Jongdae makes a face. “That’s not – ah.”

“Found it?” Luhan blows ineffectively at his fringe. “It’s harder to find than the Phoenix.”

“Mm.” Jongdae closes his eyes. “Ah – no, back there – “

“ _Phoenix.”_ Luhan abandons Jongdae’s back muscles, disgusted.

“Luhan,” Jongdae whines. “Luhan.”

“I can’t find the spot,” Luhan says, leaning in. “Can’t we just fuck?”

“…fine,” Jongdae says, pretending that’s not what he prefers, either.

It’s not much less awkward. Without the intensity, Jongdae has space in his mind to think about Luhan. About the long planes of Luhan’s body, the sharp jut of his collarbones, and whether Luhan likes getting his nipples touched.

The answer is, he does, but he doesn’t like Jongdae gloating about it.

“That’s-“ Jongdae’s brows knit together. Luhan’s skin sticks to his, and to be honest, if Jongdae wasn’t turned on, he would find that disgusting.

“That’s it,” Jongdae says breathily. Luhan sighs, says, “finally,” and goes to work with his fingers.

It’s not crazy hot sex. It’s just Luhan with Jongdae, maybe in Jongdae, maybe under Jongdae sometimes. Quick, rough touch of fingers and lips and cock – and – everywhere, actually. Jongdae very aware that this is Luhan, with him.

It’s still good sex. Jongdae manages to wrap his legs around Luhan’s waist, and the look on Luhan’s face as Jongdae locks his ankles in the small of his back makes Jongdae laugh.

Luhan even laughs, sometimes. Jongdae treasures that.

\--

One day, large aircraft carriers block out the sky above. The Hunt’s here, in Nabreus.

Jongdae meets Suho again, at gunpoint. The Desun soldiers had spotted Jongdae, and Jongdae hadn’t wanted to see any of them. He’d run, but Suho’s power was water. There was water everywhere in the Deadlands.

“Chen?” This familiarity splashes, like clear water. “Suho.”

“The mark’s human-shaped,” someone warns. “It could have morphed.”

They’re hunting the same thing the Phoenix was, then.

They pat Jongdae down. Jongdae’s thinking he’ll get away with it, until someone lifts up the back of Jongdae’s hair. They see the spiral, of course. The punched-out look of shock on Suho’s face makes Jongdae turn away in shame.

Jongdae thought he’d forgotten about Suho, but nothing is that easy. Seeing Suho again makes Jongdae’s hands shake, from how much he used to want – still wants – Suho. Suho’s voice, clean, crisp, the way he looks at Jongdae, sincere, open – the way he makes Jongdae feel bright and happy, in love with life – how much Jongdae’s desire took and twisted everything, still makes him unable to even look straight at Suho now.

To think that Suho would be disappointed with Jongdae is – Jongdae – Jongdae wants to push his way through the Desun soldiers, but Suho catches hold of his arm.

“Come back for a meal.”

It’s not a question, and Jongdae hates getting pushed. But it’s also Suho.

\--

Kyungsoo’s smaller than Jongdae, but he carries himself with a self-assurance that even Luhan would envy.

Jongdae wants to back out of the room, but Baekhyun’s shouldering his way in, behind.

“Jongdae?” Kyungsoo smiles, from the table he’s sitting at. He’s in well-tailored linen shirt and pants. Jongdae fingers his own ratty robe, travel-stained and threadbare.

Jongdae wants to see Luhan, very badly.

Jongdae has never wanted to see Kyungsoo. He’s wanted to see the room that Kyungsoo and Suho share even less.

He’s seeing both now – Kyungsoo, and the room. Jongdae recognizes Suho’s armor and clothes. The rest, the clothes of a merchant, must be Kyungsoo’s. There’s an unmade bed in the corner. Just like the one he and Luhan use.

They’re bringing food in. It’s going to be a dinner, with talking.

Jongdae stays – he doesn’t know why.

It’s good to see Baekhyun again. Jongdae even likes Kyungsoo. But those tiny moments, when Kyungsoo and Suho touch, or smile at each other – those moments of obvious connection – they hurt Jongdae.

Jongdae’s survived without Suho. Jongdae’s happy, even, without Suho. But some feelings are etched too deep, for anything less than many years to even diminish them.

\--

Luhan can tell that something’s wrong with Jongdae.

“I’m going out,” Jongdae says shortly, taking his bag.

Footsteps behind Jongdae make him look back. Luhan never follows Jongdae out to the Deadlands. The Deadlands is Jongdae’s place.

“Can I go?”

Jongdae wants to say no. If he was in a better mood, he would have said no. He keeps walking, instead, and Luhan follows.

\--

“I met Suho,” Jongdae says, breathless. They’re climbing the heap of rubble again, the very first one Jongdae climbed when he came to the Deadlands.

Luhan nods. “Desun’s basing a Hunt out of here.”

“No, I-“ Jongdae breaks off. Doesn’t know how to explain. What are Jongdae and Luhan? How can Jongdae explain Suho? But wait, Luhan knows all about Jongdae and Suho.

They crest the top of the rubble. Jongdae’s clutching his palm – he scratched it, when he wasn’t looking.

Restless, upset. Jongdae breathes, looks out across the field of fire and water. It’s hard to remember the peace he first felt, here.

It feels like he’s making this place – wrong. Like if he leaves, unhappy, it would taint the first moment he had here.

Luhan gazes out across the Deadlands. Dressed in silver, he looks hazy and unreal, against the shimmering, moving lights in the background.

“It’s nice,” he says.

“It’s nice?” Jongdae’s at a loss for words. “It’s wrong. Let’s go back.”

“I like it.” Luhan stretches, loose-limbed and easy. “Let’s sit here for a while.”

“I said I don’t want to,” Jongdae says sharply.

“What’s wrong?” Luhan asks again. It’s like he’s repeating it, like a question. Like he was waiting for the unease rattling Jongdae to poke its head out, before he could latch onto it.  


“I just-“ Jongdae makes a frustrated sound.

Luhan’s reaching for Jongdae. His palm stops before Jongdae’s wrist, and he asks, “can I?”

Jongdae swallows. They’ve had sex, but they haven’t – Luhan hasn’t taken Jongdae under again.

Jongdae nods. He feels vulnerable, suddenly. Small and cold on top of the plateau.

Luhan’s palm is slightly cold, against Jongdae’s neck.

“Let me?” he asks, and Jongdae – Luhan never asked, not like this, before.

He nods, again. Luhan’s palms circle Jongdae’s neck, digging in.

Jongdae takes a breath, finds it restricted. Panics.

Luhan’s fingers keep tightening. Jongdae stares at Luhan, stares at the familiar face and impossibly, Luhan smiles.

“Thanks,” he says, leaning in. Jongdae closes his eyes and breathes, except he can’t. He can hear only his own heartbeat, thundering, and Luhan’s soft, slow breaths.

Jongdae goes under, just like that. Nothing violent. Nothing forced. Like stepping through a door, Jongdae’s underwater, buried deep. Jongdae can feel his lungs squeezing, painfully, his head starting to hurt.

Luhan lets go of Jongdae’s throat, and Jongdae collapses limply into him. Jongdae lets Luhan undo his robe and kiss the corner of his lips. Luhan pauses, then cups the back of Jongdae’s head and kisses him again.

They don’t kiss often. Luhan’s mouth is foreign, wet. He tastes like saliva and tea, but Jongdae kind of likes it. Their tongues tangle, mingling. Luhan’s tongue sweeps the upper portion of Jongdae’s mouth. They kiss until Jongdae’s light-headed and dizzy.

They’re in the middle of the Deadlands, but the only thing Jongdae is looking at is Luhan, sitting over him, removing his clothes the same way he did so long ago.

It’s different. Jongdae wants this to be Luhan; Luhan gasping as Jongdae touches him in return, Luhan caging Jongdae in with his elbows and body as he fucks Jongdae. Luhan the only thing Jongdae sees, now, on top of the plateau.

There’s less rush, now. Slowly, lazily, making it last. Like they have all the time in the world.

It feels different, this time. Like Jongdae’s willingly sharing something, and Luhan’s not a faceless man on the street.

\--

The Phoenix’s there, watching them. Like Kris, that time. Jongdae scrambles for his clothes, and Luhan simply stares.

Jongdae flings Luhan’s robe at him.

“Why? She’s naked as well,” Luhan says.

Jongdae and the Phoenix sigh in tandem. The Phoenix lifts herself to her feet and begins to walk, barefoot, back through the ruins. She keeps looking back.

“She wants us to follow,” Jongdae translates. They do.

\--

Jongdae recognizes the black figure. He creeps towards the Phoenix, as she stands in the wide canal and Jongdae first saw her in. It’s like the woodsman and the Phoenix.

Luhan touches Jongdae, a faint connection brimming to life. Enough that Jongdae knows where Luhan is, what he’s looking at.

It’s useful. Both of them approach the figure from different angles – Luhan from behind, Jongdae from in front, because Jongdae has no stealth.

It runs away from Jongdae, towards Luhan. Away from Luhan, again, but Jongdae’s near it now – he ran down into the canal, then back up again, from the back of the figure. They hunt it down together, Jongdae’s electricity arcing blue-white in the night.

They couldn’t catch it without the Phoenix. She wants them to catch it. She’s there, marking its path, urging Jongdae and  Luhan on.

It’s two hours before they corner it. It’s almost painfully easy, in the end. The figure has no defences. It’s just a rotting body in a tattered cloak. The skin of its mouth is gone, enough that the bone of the jaw and collarbone can be seen. The figure’s teeth clack together, chattering.

Its hands are twisted together – fused together, flesh rotted and entwined. Luhan peels it apart with his knife without blinking, prises the flame that it’s holding out of its hands. The red bird alights again, tail whisking red in the darkness.

The Phoenix reaches for the flame, but she can’t get hold of it. It slips and slides out of her fingers. Luhan finally keeps it away in the end. She’s crying and angry.

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae says. She shakes her head, mouths something. In the end, she disappears again.

It looks like she said Yixing.

\--

Jongdae keeps thinking about that word. Yixing. He follows Luhan back to Maygea, that night. Watches Luhan place the flame in a holder, back in the temple. It’s the last placeholder.  


“We have another room, inside,” Luhan says, when Jongdae asks. “Yixing said she wanted it this way.”

Yixing.

Jongdae goes back to the temple, that night. The Phoenix stands in the bath again, gazing at the sky. Waiting.

Yixing’s there, talking to her. He sits on the steps and talks. He looks sad, but happy, at the same time. Like something he waited for is finally coming.

Jongdae follows Yixing back down – enough to see Yixing cupping the flames. Like in a dream, he picks one up, then another. The Phoenix holds Yixing’s hands, guiding him.

 The flames hang together loosely, like – like the tail of the red bird. Jongdae watches, puzzled. Realization waits, on the edges of his mind.

The Phoenix, and the hooded figure. Holding the flame away from her. Like the woodsman, holding the Phoenix’s cloak away from her.

Yixing’s re-stitching her coat for her. So she can go back.

The cloak hangs from Yixing’s fingers, a rippling wave of fire.

“Yixing!” Jongdae steps into the room. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but a sense of foreboding tells him it’s not good.

It’s the Phoenix that fights with Jongdae- she holds Jongdae and tries to sink into him. She fights desperately, as Yixing moves past both of them.

Maygea stores flames. So does Desun. Yixing’s going to Desun.

Luhan flares across the connection, as the Phoenix twists her way into Jongdae. Panic, when he realizes what Yixing has done.

The Phoenix wants to die. She doesn’t want to have eternal life – doesn’t want to be cursed to wander the earth, eternally. But she needs a body, the body of one of her descendants, before she can go back. Someone needs to die.

Yixing, telling Jongdae – “I’m beyond hope”.

The Phoenix fades away; Jongdae’s left panting on the floor. “Luhan,” he says, and what echoes loud and clear is despair and fear.

\--

Luhan grips Jongdae’s hand; they’re on the fastest airship they could get.

Yixing dying would break Luhan.

\--

Yixing waits, in the heart of Desun’s temple. There’s the sky above, and fire in Yixing’s fingers.

Yixing planned this. Everything becomes clear.  Yixing wanted people there to look after Maygea after his death, so he got Jongdae and Xiumin and Kai and the rest of them. It’s not that Yixing didn’t care about Maygea. Yixing simply knew that the Phoenix needed to go, and Yixing couldn’t be around to rule Maygea. Yixing’s been planning his own death, for a very long time.

Luhan’s trying so hard to control Yixing, but Yixing’s holding him off. Their eyes meet, and hold across the courtyard. Through Jongdae’s own tie to Luhan, he can feel what Yixing is saying.

“Thank you,” Yixing is saying. He’s remembering, with guilt so bitter it’s like poison, all that Luhan gave up for him. Luhan coming back bruised and bloody everywhere; Luhan and the days Luhan couldn’t talk, his lips were so swollen. Luhan planning with single-minded, frozen determination how to kill someone. Luhan with nothing but satisfaction, no matter how cruel the task was. As long as it kept Yixing safe.

Yixing planned for Jongdae, and Luhan. Yixing hoped for someone to take care of Luhan; for Luhan, to still live after Yixing died.

He loves Luhan, has loved Luhan for so long. Just as Luhan has loved him.

The Phoenix steps into Yixing. Together, outlines blurred, they put the cloak on.

Raw, alive, faintly golden, the Phoenix takes flight. She gains speed rapidly, trailing bits of flame like a meteor racing across the night sky.

Jongdae can hear singing. Wordless, but because of that, speaking to something deeper. Something far away, something like longing and a faint, far-off belief for a better day.

\--

“I need to-“ Luhan breaks off. “I need to look for Yixing.”

Yixing’s gone. Both Jongdae and Luhan know that. The Phoenix’s voice doesn’t sound in their ears anymore, though their powers still exist.

“I’ll go with you,” Jongdae says. Luhan says “no,” presses his hands to his eyes. “Yixing wanted you to stay,” he says strained. “He was grooming you to take care of Maygea, with the rest of them.”

“I’m going,” Jongdae says. Luhan says “no,” looks into Jongdae’s eyes. Says “I’m sorry”, finally, two and half years later, and puts Jongdae to sleep again.

\--

When Jongdae wakes up, Luhan’s gone. Maygea’s descending into civil war, now.

Jongdae stays, and for the rest of the war, he regrets it every single day. Jongdae’s power is made for battlefields and morgues, but Jongdae’s not. He does it anyway – lightning storms and electrical explosions - because he’s good at it. It gets him a reputation - His temper is faster than lightning, people say. Jongdae just – wants this all over and done with. He’s working with Kris, who doesn’t even make jabs at Jongdae anymore. Kris is strained and tired and mostly very, grimly determined at ending the war.

Desun gets tugged into the civil war. They funnel money and cash to those attempting to overthrow Minseok, who’s the new Emperor. Jongdae takes over what Luhan used to do, because Jongdae’s the only one who had a grasp on his networks.

Jongdae doesn’t find it hard as the spymaster, by the end of the second year. He’s got one purpose, and that is to end the war, so he can go and find Luhan. Kai and Jongdae, they clash more than once. Kai’s pushing for greater representation of Lower Maygea, and Jongdae gets in the way of that, sometimes. Electrical fires, houses catching fires, people falling dead, mysteriously struck by lightning. Xiumin has to step in, more than once.

By the end of the third year, the war is over. Luhan’s still not back, and Jongdae has no idea where to find him. Jongdae’s also good friends with Tao, back on speaking terms with Kai, and still cannot sleep properly through an entire night.

Time passes quickly, after that. Two more years. Xiumin gives Jongdae the city militia, as well, and the courts. It’s no longer martial law. Jongdae has to get used to compromise. To resolution, which is funny, when Jongdae can’t even resolve his own life.

Jongdae flies everywhere, now. He visits all the cities that the Phoenix has, like a belated pilgrimage. He asks the innkeeper, everywhere he goes, whether there’s anybody in his room.

\--

One day, Jongdae opens the door of his room, in the temple. Jongdae sees brown, tousled hair and a peaceful face. Luhan’s sleeping on Jongdae’s bed. Gaunter. Older.

Jongdae leans against the door of his room and cries, like he did, the last time Luhan came looking for him. The tears are bewildering, at first.

He cries because he’s so angry, Luhan left him for so many years. Eight years, since they first met, and Luhan has been missing for five of those.

He cries for the years lost and the mistakes made and the person he has become. Harder, bitter, colder. If he didn’t meet Luhan that day, things would have been very different, for both of them.

He cries because Luhan’s back, and if he didn’t come back, Jongdae would have gone on living, and waiting. Searching. Jongdae doesn’t know when he would have stopped looking.

Doubled over, he can’t stop crying. Luhan kneels before him and touches his face, wipes the tears.

“If you leave again,” Jongdae says, “please don’t leave again, I don’t think I can –“ he breaks off – “you were gone for so long, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this again. Luhan.”

“You waited,” Luhan says, and Jongdae turns his face into Luhan’s palm. Eight years.

“I didn’t,” Jongdae says. The truth is, Jongdae – waited, but he also – but life also went on. He finds that the scariest, that life will still go on. That Jongdae can still survive, even if he’s blank and empty and wordless.

Luhan understands. He leans in, and they’re pressed cheek to cheek. Jongdae can hear Luhan breathing, again, like he never left.

If enough time passed, Jongdae – might have gotten better. Found it easier to breathe, under the moonlight.

But Luhan’s here, he came back. He left and he had his own journey, he had his own mourning. And he came back.

That, Jongdae thinks, might be enough.

 

-fin-

 

**16\. Time (Epilogue)**

 

Luhan polishes the tiles slowly, carefully. Tao had shipped this batch all the way from the Deadlands. Like a scavenger, Tao had chipped squares off stones that had caught his eye.

Luhan has been at this for a while. It takes time, to whittle the pieces to the shapes he wants.

The design is forming up nicely. The Phoenix lingers, half-complete, on the floor of the Temple Bath. As bright as the night she had lifted itself away from them, unfurling wings loose and burning. Luhan thinks of Yixing, every time he sees her.

“You need to move on,” Kai says, from his place on the steps of the bath. “Jongdae wouldn’t be happy.”

Kai hadn’t known him, not in the same way Luhan had. “He would understand.”

Kai and Luhan are more similar than they thought they would be. Like Luhan, Kai’s focused on tasks. They have an ability to lock away parts of themselves, no matter how precious, for their goals. Lower Maygea’s lurching to life under Kai’s leadership.

“Why did Jongdae choose you?”

It’s not like Kai to ask questions like this. But it is a special day, after all.

“I don’t know,” Luhan says. Of course he knows, but what he had with Jongdae is his to keep.

“Why did you choose Jongdae?” Kai slouches on the steps, as though he doesn’t really care what Luhan is going to say.

Did Luhan choose Jongdae? It’s not clear, even in hindsight.

Luhan had met Jongdae on the border between Desun and Maygea. It had been curiosity, at first. And then jealousy, because Suho had someone who cared so much about him. But mostly, Luhan was thinking about how he could use Jongdae against Suho.

It became dependence, over time. Luhan and Jongdae had shared Maygea; living and breathing its streets, its people. Jongdae had seen Luhan for who he was, had seen him at his cruellest. Luhan had seen Jongdae at his weakest, at his most cowardly. There was nothing that could be hidden, after that.

Luhan still thinks that he’s the one who has hurt Jongdae the most, over these years.

But Luhan has also given Jongdae all that he has. Is it enough? Is it fair? Luhan thinks it is. He knows Jongdae enough to know that at his core, Jongdae loves life. Life touches him, like the Phoenix did, in a way it doesn’t touch most other people. Jongdae had left, those few times, whether Suho or Luhan. To protect himself. To still be someone capable of loving; not someone caught in a bad situation, until bitterness and unhappiness eroded the person he was.

Either way, Luhan had chosen, and he had trusted Jongdae to make a choice that would be good for himself, as well. They both knew each other well enough to know when not to reach for the other; to let each other have space, space to think, and to come back if they were ready.

Jongdae and Luhan didn’t want the burden of having to make choices for each other. In that way, it was freedom, for both of them.

“I’ll say that to the priest,” Luhan says instead. “Not you.”

\--

Chanyeol sits on the steps at night. Luhan’s still piecing tiles carefully. He’s making the curve of the eyelid, now.

“So, I’ll write while you talk. But before that, why did you ask for me?”

“You didn’t know Jongdae or me.”

“That makes...I. Hm. Well, thanks for choosing me. I’ve heard a lot about the two of you. Jongdae, especially. He did a lot of good work.”

“How’s Suho and Baekhyun?”

“Good.” Chanyeol nods. “Do you know them?”

“He’d want to know,” Luhan says.

“Well.” Chanyeol pauses. He balances his clipboard on his lap. “Should we-“

“Yes.”

It’s Luhan’s first time doing a confession.

“Jongdae,” he says. “I made you wait. You’re making me wait, now. And I will.” It should be awkward, with Chanyeol, but Luhan can’t care less.

“I hurt you.” It’s raw. It’s not new. Luhan has said this to Jongdae before, but Jongdae always told Luhan that he made his own choices. But Luhan still has to say it anyway.

“But all I can think of,” he confesses, “is you looking for me. How you look, when you go into a room and see that I’m already there. I-“ Luhan blinks, makes himself loosen his grip on a blue tile before he cuts himself.

“I miss you,” he says quietly. “I miss you at night, the most. We should be – we – you lived without me, for so many years. I thought Yixing was enough and I can still keep living, you know that, but Jongdae. I want to – I want to see you smile, when they finish rebuilding Lower Maygea next week. I want to hear you laugh at Tao and Sehun when they next fight – it should be soon.  I want to sit next to you at Baekhyun’s next Phoenix recital and watch you watch him, rapt, and be able to ask you what you were thinking. Because I can ask now, and you won’t reply. And I-“

Luhan has to take a breath. “And I promised.” His voice cracks. “I promised, and it’s, I know you wanted this for so long. I’ll wait, and I promised, but Jongdae, it’s hard.”

The colors on the tiles are beautiful. Blurred, but beautiful. Luhan puts a hand to his eyes. “Jongdae, it’s so hard,” he says, so soft Chanyeol can’t hear. Luhan waves him away as he leans in.

“I love you,” Luhan says. “Thank you for never asking me to say it. I won’t say that you were a good person, or kind, because that’s not. Because I don’t care how you were to other people, I’m only – Jongdae you could be a saint, but if you’re not here, that’s not good enough for me, Jongdae. Jongdae, you said we carry our worlds with us. I’m trying, and I’ll wait.”

Luhan’s not one for long, sentimental speeches.

“I was happy,” he says. That’s – what was, what still is important. “I hope you were, too. I hope you still are.”

He stays in the temple, that night, after Chanyeol leaves. By morning, he’s finished tiling the floor of that temple. The Phoenix’s eye stares out at Luhan.

\--

“So this is it?” Chanyeol shades his eyes, gazing out over Maygea. Tao bristles.

“It’s amazing.” Suho gazes over Maygea, hand in hand with Kyungsoo.

Kai shrugs, leaning against the low wall. Jongin fidgets on his arm, claws flexing.

“Desun needs this.” Sehun has a camera out, already taking pictures of the view. “You’re retired,” Baekhyun points out. “Let the next generation do their job.”

It is amazing. Xiumin never fails to be surprised, every time he looks out at what Luhan has done for Jongdae. He’d built baths across Maygea, and inside each of them, he’d tiled the floor of each one with stones brought back from the Deadlands. Each of them forms a part of the Phoenix. The first Temple, the one where Yixing had changed of them, makes up her dark, intelligent eye.

Gazing across Maygea, this way, across all the tiled baths, Xiumin can see her in flight; red and golden, glorious. Still present, with Maygea.

“He wasn’t that bad,” Suho admits. With Luhan’s help, the last of the promised changes were enacted. Lower Maygea was now complete, and relations with Desun were at an all-time high.

Kris appears through the narrow doorway, bent almost double. He’s cradling a small cloth-bound package tied in string.

“Is this it?” Tao takes it from Kris, turning it over in his hands. “If you drop it,” Kris warns. Tao ignores him.

“What about Jongdae?”

“He’s here already,” Kai says, patting Jongin.

“How does this work?” Tao asks, at last. Sehun tuts at him.

“Give it to me,” Chanyeol says, dusting his hands. Chanyeol’s the best priest, among all of them. None of the rest have the patience to do rites.

Setting the bundle on the ledge beside Jongin, Chanyeol ties it carefully to Jongin’s left leg, matching the other bundle tied to his right leg.

“So,” Chanyeol says, once he’s done. “Who’s going first?”

“I want to go last,” Xiumin says. “I knew both of them well, after all.”

“So we’re doing it for both of them?”

“It’s flexible.” Chanyeol shrugs.

“I’ll go first.” Kai quiets Jongin, holding him still.

“When you came back,” Kai begins. “When you came back from Duo’s house, that night. Your arms full, and your hair wet. You looked at me and asked if you could stay, for a while. I knew you would leave, but Jongdae, I wanted to tell you, I would always have let you stay. Always. Even when we were fighting, those years. May the Phoenix lift you, Jongdae. And Luhan. We – it’s not for Jongdae. I would have let you stay, too. You are a friend. May the Phoenix light your way.”

“I lied, Jongdae.” Suho pauses. Everyone looks at him in surprise, even Kyungsoo. “I knew. And I didn’t know what to do. And I can only say, I care for you, in my own way. Thank you for lying to me, that time. May the Phoenix take both of you.”

“I guessed,” Kyungsoo says. “But you were so careful. The Phoenix light both of you, Jongdae and Luhan.”

“I knew, about Suho.” Baekhyun smiles wryly at Suho. “Jongdae. We grew up together.  I’ll always have you in my heart. Luhan, I can’t stand you, but you were there for Jongdae, when I wasn’t. May the Phoenix find both of you.”

“I’m brash,” Tao says. “But Jongdae likes me brash. I look polite, beside Luhan. And –“ he glances at Sehun. “You two were the first to know, and never said anything. I think it’s because Sehun and I were tame beside the two of you.”

Sehun hits him. “Say something nice.”

“Thank you?” Tao shrugs. “They know I liked them.”

“May the Phoenix hold,” Sehun sighs. Tao echoes him.

“I knew you didn’t like fighting,” Kris says. “I made you do it, anyway. Those years, when Luhan wasn’t there. I would have been smothered by sneaky insurgents without you. I know you couldn’t sleep properly, those years. I knew where Luhan was, a few times, in those years, and I knew you were looking. I told Luhan you were looking. I – “ he sighs. “Both you and Luhan. Luhan, you always looked out for me. Even though you said you didn’t care about anyone. I’ll miss you both. May the Phoenix fly the two of you.”

“You’re my brother, Luhan,” Xiumin says. “Even through everything. Jongdae, you.” He prepared a speech, but there’s nothing much Xiumin can say, in the end. “May the Phoenix be kind, to both of you,” he says.

Chanyeol nods. Kai lets go, and Jongin takes flight, over Maygea. As he soars, into the blinding sun above, the packages come undone, scattering the contents.

The wind takes the ashes, whisking them away.

Below, the Phoenix glitters. Today, Xiumin ordered all the baths to be filled. The Phoenix’s present but unfocused, refracted and hidden by the water. Later, they will light the torches around the baths, when night falls.

Luhan had wanted it to look like the Deadlands, with the pools and flames.

Jongdae had died, five years ago. Luhan had taken up the projects he had left, after that. At the same time, he’d begun constructing the baths and the pools. He’d finished the first temple, the one containing its eye, the night of Jongdae’s funeral. Luhan had kept vigil, by himself, in the temple bath.

Five years later, Xiumin had found Luhan in Jongdae’s room, sleeping on his bed. Peaceful.  This time, Luhan would not wake up.

“Did you put it in?” Xiumin remembers, suddenly. Chanyeol’s squinting face turns terrified. He yanks Luhan’s confession to Jongdae out of his pants pocket.

It’s a folded, old piece of paper. It’s amazing that Chanyeol hasn’t lost it, after five years.

“ _Phoenix_ ,” Kai swears, lunging for it. Baekhyun digs a lighter out of his pocket.

“I hope it gets there,” Tao says, as flames lick and burn the paper to ashes. The wind’s obliging; it takes the ashes away, back into Maygea.

“I hope you waited for Luhan, Jongdae,” Xiumin says quietly, as the rest of them crowd together to watch Jongin’s flight. He’s circling, higher and higher, in the sky. “I hope the Phoenix finds both of you, and Yixing. I hope you all wait for me.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I AM DONE.
> 
>  
> 
> I’m also.. I mean. I can’t believe it’s done. This fic came from a really personal place, for me. I guess... when it started, I had moments of feelings I wanted to capture. I just started writing it because there were moments when I was sad. And it was...rewarding doesn’t begin to capture it. I guess the chapter called hawk – that was the chapter where I felt that I had a breakthrough, for myself at least, as a writer. I felt like I had a grasp on where the story was going and what it would be about. I felt like I was writing about something I cared about, and wanted to see through to the end. 
> 
> Jongdae. Luhan. Rather than a story about Jongdae and Luhan, I would say that this is a story about Jongdae, and Luhan became an important part of his life. That’s why there were characters like Kai, Yixing and the rest… because Jongdae did have more than one person important to him. Because Jongdae’s a human being and he has the ability to care about different people, in different ways. That’s why words like like, love, boyfriend, lover, these are words that didn’t seem to fit well when I was writing these stories. It’s hard to distinguish types of closeness…maybe only in the kind of expectation and commitment you have for different people? 
> 
> This fic, then, is a fic about Jongdae and learning to love yourself. That a healthy relationship can only come when you can live with yourself. So…I guess the driving tension, was, how do you deal with need? How do you have healthy relationships when you’re empty and it feels like you were born with a metaphorical hole in your heart? That was the question I was struggling with. I feel like it was more clear-cut in the earlier chapters – that you just… that you just are compelled to look for people, because we are humans and humans just need people… but then the question became, in the chapter hawk, how long can such a relationship last? And in the next few chapters, Jongdae found that it wasn’t enough. That emotional closeness was what he wanted, and to have that they needed trust and mutual understanding, which Luhan and Jongdae didn’t quite have yet. Or they had inklings of it but it wasn’t strong enough. And when you look for trust, the skeletons in the closet come out. Which are the bad things that Luhan did to Jongdae, earlier in the relationship. To get over them, or be able to live with them, Jongdae needs to be at peace with himself. He spends time alone, then. Has his own set of experiences; becomes his own person. Does not blindly need their relationship, but enters it on a more equal footing. The scene in the Nabreus deadlands, where Jongdae spends time on his own, was a scene I felt happy and peaceful writing. 
> 
> And most of all, all these needed time to happen. Time for relationships to build, time for scabs to heal over. Time, to test and bake and fire relationships. So it just… became a fic with a lot of going away and coming back. Where Jongdae had his life and Luhan had his life and they were lucky, lucky that eight years later it was finally the right time for both of them.  
> There’s also the Phoenix. I ache, when I think of desert sand, blue sky, and the Phoenix. It’s just a archetype I have in my mind for long and I’m so happy she’s finally on paper. She’s like…longing, to me. Loss, knowing that you lost something, something good that you had. Maybe something good that was part of you. But also the continued search. Maybe just feelings itself too? Feeling something other than the numbness of daily life. Searching to live a life, happy to have the capacity to feel. Can’t put it exactly down in words.
> 
> Last paragraph, about writing. Writing means a lot to me. Stories mean a lot to me. I’m happy to have a chance to write this story and have you all read it. It’s like...making visible vague thoughts. Understanding myself better, too, when I write something. I still have a long way to go as a writer – better word choice, etc – but I’m thankful, most of all, to have to have written something honest. Maybe not expressed the best it could be – control of diction and word choice, rhythm of sentences, could be more disciplined – but it’s still. It’s still something.
> 
> Thank you for reading my story and giving me this wonderful experience. <3 
> 
> *also congrats on your ost kingjongdae!!*


End file.
